THE  PANAMA  CANAL 


THE  PANAMA  CANAL 


BY 

FREDERIC  J.  HASKIN 

AUTHOR  OF  "  THE  AMERICAN  GOVERNMENT."  ETC. 


Illustrated  from  photographs  taken  by 

ERNEST  HALLEN 
Official  Photographer  of  the  Isthmian  Canal  Commission 


GARDEN  CITY     NEW  YORK 

DOUBLEDAY,  PAGE  &  COMPANY 

1914 


r 
..US 


.Copyright,  1913,  ly 
DOUBLED  AY,  PAGE  &  COMPANY 


reserved,  including  that  of 
translation  into  foreign  languages, 
including  the  Scandinavian 


PREFACE 

THE  primary  purpose  of  this  book  is  to  tell  the 
layman  the  story  of  the  Panama  Canal.  It  is 
written,  therefore,  in  the  simplest  manner  possible, 
considering  the  technical  character  of  the  great 
engineering  feat  itself,  and  the  involved  complex- 
ities of  the  diplomatic  history  attaching  to  its 
inception  and  undertaking.  The  temptation,  to 
turn  aside  into  the  pleasant  paths  of  the  romantic 
history  of  ancient  Panama  has  been  resisted; 
there  is  no  attempt  to  dispose  of  political  problems 
that  incidentally  concern  the  canal;  in  short,  the 
book  is  confined  to  the  story  of  the  canal  itself; 
and  the  things  that  are  directly  and  vitally  con- 
nected with  it. 

Colonel  Goethals  was  good  enough  to  read  and 
correct  the  chapters  relating  to  the  construction 
of  the  canal,  and,  when  shown  a  list  of  the  chapters 
proposed,  he  asked  that  the  one  headed  "The 
Man  at  the  Helm"  be  omitted.  The  author  felt 
that  to  bow  to  his  wishes  in  that  matter  would  be 
to  fail  to  tell  the  whole  story  of  the  canal,  and  so 
Colonel  Goethals  did  not  read  that  chapter. 

Every  American  is  proud  of  the  great  national 
achievement  at  Panama.  If,  in  the  case  of  the 
individual,  this  book  is  able  to  supplement  that 
pride  by  an  ample  fund  of  knowledge  and  in- 
formation, its  object  and  purpose  will  have  been 
attained. 


285741 


ACKNOWLEDGMENTS } 

THE  grateful  acknowledgments  of  the  author  are 
due  to  Mr.  William  Joseph  Showalter  for  his  valu- 
able aid  in  gathering  and  preparing  the  material  for 
this  book.  Acknowledgments  are  also  due  to  Colonel 
George  W.  Goethals,  chairman  and  chief  engineer 
of  the  Isthmian  Canal  Commission,  for  reading 
and  correcting  those  chapters  in  the  book  pertain- 
ing to  the  engineering  phases  of  the  work;  to  Mr. 
Ernest  Hallen,  the  official  photographer  of  the 
Commission,  for  the  photographs  with  which  the 
book  is  illustrated;  to  Mr.  Gilbert  H.  Grosvenor, 
editor  of  the  National  Geographic  Magazine,  for 
permission  to  use  the  bird's-eye  view  map  of  the 
canal;  to  Mr.  G.  Thomas  Ritchie,  of  the  Library  of 
Congress,  for  assistance  in  preparing  the  index; 
and  to  Mr.  Howard  E.  Sherman,  of  the  Govern- 
ment Printing  Office,  for  revising  the  proofs  to 
conform  with  the  typographical  style  of  the  United 
States  Government. 


CONTENTS 


CHAPTEB  PAGE 

I.  The  Land  Divided— The  World  United     ....  3 

II.  Greatest   Engineering   Project 23 

III.  Gatun  Dam 33 

IV.  The    Locks 45 

V.  The  Lock  Machinery 57 

VI.  Culebra   Cut 70- 

VII.  Ends  of  the  Canal 82 

VIII.  The  .  Panama    Railroad 93 

IX.  Sanitation 105 

X.  The  Man   at   the   Helm 118- 

XI.  The   Organization 133  — 

XII.  The  American  Workers .145 

XIII.  The  Negro   Workers 154 

XIV.  The   Commissary 164 

XV.  Life  on  the  Zone 176 

XVI.  Past   Isthmian   Projects *  194  - 

XVII.  The   French    Failure 206  - 

XVIII.  Choosing   the    Panama    Route 221  - 

XIX.  Controversy  with  Colombia 233 

XX.  Relations  with  Panama «    «.     .  246  - 

XXI.  Canal  Zone  Government 256 

XXII.  Congress  and  the  Canal «     .  268 

XXIII.  Sea  Level  Canal  Impossible 277 

XXIV.  Fortifications 283 

XXV.  Fixing   the    Tolls 295 

XXVI.  The  Operating  Force    .     .     .     w    M    :.,     ....  309 

XXVII.  Handling  the   Traffic 317 

XXVIII.  The  Republic  of  Panama >  326 

XXIX.  Other   Great   Canals 335 

XXX.  A    New    Commercial    Map .     .347^ 

XXXI.  American  Trade  Opportunities 358  "" 

XXXII.  The    Panama-Pacific    Exposition 368 


THE  ILLUSTRATIONS 

Birdseye  View  of  the  Panama  Canal  Zone     ....     Color  insert 

FACING  PAGE 

George  W.  Goethals,  Chairman  and  Chief  Engineer    ....  10 

A  Street  in  the  City  of  Panama 11 

Theodore  Roosevelt 18 

William  Howard  Taft    .     >     -.. 18 

Woodrow  Wilson 18 

The  First  Boat  to  Pass  Through  the  Gatun  Locks 19 

Lieut.   Col.  W.  L.  Sibert     .     . '  V:  . 42 

The  Upper  Locks  at  Gatun 42 

Toro    Point    Breakwater      . 43 

Concrete  Mixers,  Gatun 50 

A  Center  Wall  Culvert,  Gatun  Locks 50 

The  Machinery  for  Moving  a  Lock  Gate 51 

Steam  Shovels  Meeting  at  Bottom  of  Culebra  Cut     ....  74 

L.  K.  kourke 74 

The  Man-made  Canyon  at  Culebra 75 

The  Disastrous  Effects  of  Slides  in  Culebra  Cut 82 

U.  S.  Ladder  Dredge  "Corozal" 83 

A  Mud  Bucket  of  the  "Corozal" 83 

W.  G.  Comber 83 

Col.    William   C.    Gorgas 106 

The   Hospital   Grounds,   Ancon 106 

Lieut.   Frederic  Mears 107 

The  Old   Panama   Railroad 107 

Sanitary  Drinking  Cup 114 

Mosquito  Oil  Drip  Barrel    . •    w 114 

Spraying  Mosquito  Oil : 114 

The  Gatun  Locks,  with  the  Atlantic  Entrance 115 

Opening  the  Lower  Guard  Gates  of  the  Gatun  Locks    .     .  '".     .     .  115 

Maj.  Gen.  George  W.  Davis 138 

Rear  Admiral  J.  G.  Walker .     .  138 

Theodore  P.  Shonts .   >'    •     •      •  138 

John  F.  Wallace .     .    V    .     .     .  138 

vin 


ILLUSTRATIONS  ix 

FACING   PAGE 

John  F.  Stevens     .     ,:    >     .:.>.>:.: 138 

Charles  E.  Magoon     ...>........     >     .  138 

Richard  Lee   Metcalfe 139 

Emory  R.  Johnson .     K    r.  139 

Maurice   H.   Thatcher 139 

Joseph  Bucklin  Bishop 139 

H.  A.  Gudger 139 

Joseph  C.   S.   Blackburn 139 

Brig.  Gen.  Carroll  A.  Devol 146 

American  Living  Quarters  at  Cristobal 146 

Harry  H.  Rousseau 147 

Lowering   a  Caisson  Section 147 

John    Burke 170 

Meal  Time  at  an  I.  C.  C.  Kitchen 170 

Washington   Hotel,  Colon 171 

Major  Eugene  T.  Wilson 171 

The  Tivoli  Hotel,  Ancon 171 

Floyd   C.   Freeman 178 

I.  C.  C.  Club  House  at  Culebra 178 

A.    Bruce    Minear 179 

Reading  Room  in  the  I.  C.  C.  Club  House,  Culebra     ....  179 

Col.  Chester  L.   Harding .     .  202 

The  Gatun  Upper  Locks 202 

Lieut.   Col.   David   D.    Gaillard 203 

Culebra  Cut,  Showing  Cucaracha  Slide  in  Left  Center    ...  203 

The  Man  of  Brawn 210 

Ferdinand  de  Lesseps 211 

An  Old  French  Excavator  Near  Tabernilla 211 

Philippe  Bunau-Varilla 211 

S.  B.  Williamson ' 234 

The  Lower  Gates,  Miraflores  Locks 234 

Middle  Gates,  Miraflores  Locks 235 

H.  O.  Cole 235 

The  Pay  Car  at  Culebra 242 

Edward   J.    Williams 242 

Uncle  Sam's  Laundry  at  Cristobal 243 

Smoke  from  Heated  Rocks  in  Culebra  Cut 266- 

Tom  M.   Cooke 267 

The  Post  Office,  Ancon 267 

A  Negro  Girl 274 

A  Martinique  Woman 274 


x  ILLUSTRATIONS 

FACING  PAGE 

San  Bias  Chief 274 

An  Indian  Girl 274 

An  Italian 274 

A  Timekeeper r. 274 

A    Spaniard 274 

A  Negro  Boy 274 

Testing  the  Emergency  Dam,  Gatun  Locks 275 

Col.  Harry  F.  Hodges 275 

The  Ancon  Baseball  Park 298 

Caleb  M.   Saville 299 

Gatun  Spillway  from  Above   and  Below 299 

An  Electric  Towing  Locomotive  in  Action 306 

Blowing  Up  the  Second  Dike  South  of  Miraflores  Locks  ...  307 

DIAGRAMS 

A  Graphic  Illustration  of  the  Material  Handled  at  Panama    .  25 

A  Cross  Section  of  the  Gatun  Dam 35 

Plan  of  the  Gatun  Dam  and  Locks 36 

A  Profile  Section  of  the  Canal 40 

From  a  Model  of  Pedro  Miguel  Lock 48 

A  Cross-section  of  Locks,  Giving  an  Idea  of  Their  Size     .     .  49 

One  of  the  92  Gate-leaf  Master  Wheels 64» 

A  Mauretania  in  the  Locks 67 

The  Effect  of  Slides 72 

Average  Shape  and  Dimensions  of  Culebra  Cut 75 

The  Corozal  and  Its  Method  of  Attack 85 

International    Shipping    Routes 351 

A  Map  Showing  Isthmus  with  the  Completed  Canal     .     .     .  379 


The  Panama  Canal 


"7  have  redd  the  chapters  in  '  The  Panama  Canal9 
dealing  with  the  engineering  features  of  the  Canal 
and  have  found  them  an  accurate  and  dependable 
account  of  the  undertaking" 

GEO.  W.  GOETHALS. 


4  THE  PANAMA  CANAL 

sage.  Magellan  sought  it  thousands  of  leagues  to 
the  southward  in  the  cold  and  stormy  seas  that 
encircle  the  Antarctic  Continent.  Scores  of  mar- 
iners sought  it  to  the  northward,  but  only  one, 
Amundsen,  in  the  twentieth  century,  was  able  to 
take  a  ship  through  the  frozen  passages  of  the 
American  north  seas. 

Down  the  western  coast  of  the  new  continent 
from  the  eternal  ice  of  Alaska  through  the  Tropics 
to  the  southern  snows  of  Tierra  del  Fuego,  the 
mighty  Cordilleras  stretch  a  mountain  barrier  thou- 
sands and  thousands  and  thousands  of  miles. 

Where  that  mountain  chain  is  narrowest,  and 
where  its  peaks  are  lowest,  ships  may  now  go 
through  the  Panama  Canal.  The  canal  is  cut 
through  the  narrowest  part  of  the  Isthmus  but 
one,  and  through  the  Culebra  Mountain,  the 
lowest  pass  but  one,  in  all  that  longest,  mightiest 
range  of  mountains.  There  is  a  lower  place  in 
Nicaragua,  and  a  narrower  place  on  the  Isthmus 
east  of  the  canal,  but  the  engineers  agreed  that 
the  route  from  Colon  on  the  Atlantic  to  Panama 
on  the  Pacific  through  Culebra  Mountain  was  the 
most  practicable. 

The  canal  is  50  miles  long.  Fifteen  miles  of 
it  is  level  with  the  oceans,  the  rest  is  higher.  Ships 
are  lifted  up  in  giant  locks,  three  steps,  to  sail 
for  more  than  30  miles  across  the  continental 
divide,  85  feet  above  the  surface  of  the  ocean,  then 
let  down  by  three  other  locks  to  sea  level  again. 
The  channel  is  300  feet  wide  at  its  narrowest  place, 
and  the  locks  which  form  the  two  gigantic  water 
stairways  are  capable  of  lifting  and  lowering  the 
largest  ships  now  afloat.  A  great  part  of  the 


THE  LAND  DIVIDED  5 

higher  level  of  the  canal  is  the  largest  artificial 
lake  in  the  world,  made  by  impounding  the  waters 
of  the  Chagres  River,  thus  filling  with  water  the 
lower  levels  of  the  section.  Another  part  of  the 
higher  level  is  Culebra  Cut,  the  channel  cut  through 
the  backbone  of  the  continent. 

Almost  before  Columbus  died  plans  were  made 
for  cutting  such  a  channel.  With  the  beginning 
of  the  nineteenth  century  and  the  introduction  of 
steam  navigation,  the  demand  for  the  canal  began 
to  be  insistent. 

Many  plans  were  made,  but  it  remained  for  the 
French,  on  New  Year's  Day  of  1880,  actually  to 
begin  the  work.  They  failed,  but  not  before  they 
had  accomplished  much  toward  the  reduction  of 
Culebra  Cut.  They  expended  between  1880  and 
1904  no  less  than  $300,000,000  in  their  ill-fated 
efforts. 

In  1904  the  United  States  of  America  undertook 
the  task.  In  a  decade  it  was  completed  and  the 
Americans  had  spent,  all  told,  $375,000,000  in  the 
project. 

Because  the  Atlantic  lies  east  and  the  Pacific 
west  of  the  United  States,  one  is  likely  to  imagine 
the  canal  as  a  huge  ditch  cut  straight  across  a 
neck  of  land  from  east  to  west.  But  it  must  be 
remembered  that  South  America  lies  eastward 
from  North  America,  and  that  the  Isthmus  con- 
necting the  two  has  its  axis  east  and  west.  The 
canal,  therefore,  is  cut  from  the  Atlantic  south- 
eastward to  the  Pacific.  It  lies  directly  south  of 
Pittsburgh,  Pa.,  and  it  brings  Peru  and  Chile 
closer  to  New  York  than  California  and  Oregon. 
The  first  7  miles  of  the  canal,  beginning  at  the 


8  THE  PANAMA  CANAL 

Atlantic  end,  run  directly  south  and  from  thence 
to  the  Pacific  it  pursues  a  serpentine  course  in  a 
southeasterly  direction. 

At  the  northern,  or  Atlantic,  terminus  are  the 
twin  cities  of  Colon  and  Cristobal,  Colon  dating 
from  the  middle  of  the  nineteenth  century  when 
the  railroad  was  built  across  the  Isthmus,  and 
Cristobal  having  its  beginnings  with  the  French 
attempt  in  1880.  At  the  southern,  or  Pacific, 
terminus  are  the  twin  cities  of  Panama  and  Balboa. 
Panama  was  founded  in  1673  after  the  destruction 
by  Morgan,  the  buccaneer,  of  an  elder  city  estab- 
lished in  1519.  The  ruins  of  the  old  city  stand 
5  miles  east  of  the  new,  and,  since  their  story  is 
one,  it  may  be  said  that  Panama  is  the  oldest  city 
of  the  Western  World.  Balboa  is  yet  in  its  swad- 
dling clothes,  for  it  is  the  new  American  town  des- 
tined to  be  the  capital  of  the  American  territory 
encompassing  the  canal. 

The  waterway  is  cut  through  a  strip  of  terri- 
tory called  the  Canal  Zone,  which  to  all  intents 
and  purposes  is  a  territory  of  the  United  States. 
This  zone  is  10  miles  wide  and  follows  the  irregular 
line  of  the  canal,  extending  5  miles  on  either  side 
from  the  axis  of  the  channel.  This  Canal  Zone 
traverses  and  separates  the  territory  of  the  Re- 
public of  Panama,  which  includes  the  whole  of 
the  Isthmus,  and  has  an  area  about  equal 
to  that  of  Indiana  and  a  population  of  350,000 
or  about  that  of  Washington  City.  The  two  chief 
Panaman  cities,  Panama  and  Colon,  lie  within 
the  limits  of  the  Canal  Zone,  but,  by  the  treaty, 
they  are  excepted  from  its  government  and  are  an 
integral  part  of  the  Republic  of  Panama,  of  which 


THE  LAND  DIVIDED  7 

the  city  of  Panama  is  the  capital.  Cristobal  and 
Balboa,  although  immediately  contiguous  to  Colon 
and  Panama,  are  American  towns  under  the  Amer- 
ican flag. 

The  Canal  Zone  historically  and  commercially 
has  a  record  of  interest  and  importance  longer  and 
more  continuous  than  any  other  part  of  the  New 
World.  Columbus  himself  founded  a  settlement 
here  at  Nombre  de  Dios;  Balboa  here  discovered 
the  Pacific  Ocean;  across  this  narrow  neck  was 
transported  the  spoil  of  the  devastated  Empire 
of  the  Incas;  here  were  the  ports  of  call  for  the 
Spanish  gold-carrying  galleons;  and  here  cen- 
tered the  activities  of  the  pirates  and  buccaneers 
that  were  wont  to  prey  on  the  commerce  of  the 
Spanish  Main. 

Over  this  route,  on  the  shoulders  of  slaves  and 
the  back  of  mules,  were  transported  the  wares 
in  trade  of  Spain  with  its  colonies  not  only  on  the 
west  coasts  of  the  Americas,  but  with  the  Philip- 
pines. 

Not  far  from  Colon  was  the  site  of  the  colony 
of  New  Caledonia,  the  disastrous  undertaking  of 
the  Scotchman,  Patterson,  who  founded  the  Bank 
of  England,  to  duplicate  in  America  the  enormous 
financial  success  of  the  East  India  Company  in 
Asia. 

Here  in  the  ancient  city  of  Panama  in  the  early 
part  of  the  nineteenth  century  assembled  the  first 
Pan  American  conference  that  gave  life  to  the 
Monroe  doctrine  and  ended  the  era  of  European 
colonization  in  America. 

Here  was  built  with  infinite  labor  and  terrific 
toll  of  life  the  first  railroad  connecting  the  Atlantic 


8  THE  PANAMA  CANAL 

and  the  Pacific  Oceans  —  a  railroad  less  than  50 
miles  in  length,  but  with  perhaps  the  most  in- 
teresting story  in  the  annals  of  railroading. 

Across  this  barrier  in  '49  clambered  the  American 
argonauts,  seeking  the  newly  discovered  golden 
fleeces  of  California. 

This  was  the  theater  of  the  failure  of  Count  de 
Lesseps,  the  most  stupendous  financial  fiasco  in 
the  history  of  the  world. 

And  this,  now,  is  the  site  of  the  most  expensive 
and  most  successful  engineering  project  ever  under- 
taken by  human  beings. 

It  cost  the  French  $300,000,000  to  fail  at  Panama 
where  the  Americans,  at  the  expenditure  of  $375,- 
000,000,  succeeded.  And,  of  the  excavation  done 
by  the  French,  only  $30,000,000  worth  was  avail- 
able for  the  purpose  of  the  Americans.  That 
the  Americans  succeeded  where  the  French  had 
failed  is  not  to  be  assigned  to  the  superiority  of 
the  American  over  the  French  nation.  The 
reasons  are  to  be  sought,  rather,  in  the  underlying 
purposes  of  the  two  undertakings,  and  in  the 
scientific  and  engineering  progress  made  in  the 
double  decade  intervening  between  the  time  when 
the  French  failure  became  apparent  and  the 
Americans  began  their  work. 

In  the  first  place,  the  French  undertook  to  build 
the  canal  as  a  money-making  proposition.  People 
in  every  grade  of  social  and  industrial  life  in  France 
contributed  from  their  surpluses  and  from  their 
hard-earned  savings  money  to  buy  shares  in  the 
canal  company  in  the  hope  that  it  would  yield 
a  fabulously  rich  return.  Estimates  of  the  costs 
of  the  undertaking,  made  by  the  engineers,  were 


THE  LAND  DIVIDED  9 

arbitrarily  cut  down  by  financiers,  with  the  result 
that  repeated  calls  were  made  for  more  money 
and  the  shareholders  soon  found  to  their  dismay 
that  they  must  contribute  more  and  yet  more  before 
they  could  hope  for  any  return  whatever.  From 
the  beginning  to  the  end,  the  French  Canal  Com- 
pany was  concerned  more  with  problems  of  pro- 
motion and  finance  than  with  engineering  and 
excavation.  As  a  natural  result  of  this  spirit  at 
the  head  of  the  undertaking  the  whole  course 
of  the  project  was  marred  by  an  orgy  of  graft  and 
corruption  such  as  never  had  been  known.  Every 
bit  of  work  was  let  out  by  contract,  and  the  con- 
tractors uniformly  paid  corrupt  tribute  to  high 
officers  in  the  company.  No  watch  was  set  on 
expenditures;  everything  bought  for  the  canal 
was  bought  at  prices  too  high;  everything  it  had  to 
sell  was  practically  given  away. 

In  the  next  place,  the  French  were  pitiably  at 
the  mercy  of  the  diseases  of  the  Tropics.  The 
science  of  preventive  medicine  had  not  been  suf- 
ficiently developed  to  enable  the  French  to  know 
that  mosquitoes  and  filth  were  enemies  that  must 
be  conquered  and  controlled  before  it  would  be 
possible  successfully  to  attack  the  land  barrier. 
Yellow  fever  and  malaria  killed  engineers  and 
common  laborers  alike.  The  very  hospitals,  which 
the  French  provided  for  the  care  of  the  sick,  were 
turned  into  centers  of  infection  for  yellow  fever, 
because  the  beds  were  set  in  pans  of  water  which 
served  as  ideal  breeding  places  for  the  death-bear- 
ing stegomyia. 

In  this  atmosphere  of  lavish  extravagance  caused 
by  the  financial  corruption,  and  in  the  continual 


10  THE  PANAMA  CANAL 

fear  of  quick  and  awful  death,  the  morals  of  the 
French  force  were  broken;  there  was  no  determined 
spirit  of  conquest;  interest  centered  in  champagne 
and  women;  the  canal  was  neglected. 

Yet,  in  spite  of  this  waste,  this  corruption  of 
money  and  morals,  much  of  the  work  done  by  the 
French  was  of  permanent  value  to  the  Americans; 
and  without  the  lessons  learned  from  their  bitter 
experience  it  would  have  been  impossible  for  the 
Americans  or  any  other  people  to  have  completed 
the  canal  so  quickly  and  so  cheaply. 

The  Americans  brought  to  the  task  another 
spirit.  The  canal  was  to  be  constructed  not  in 
the  hope  of  making  money,  but,  rather,  as  a  great 
national  and  popular  undertaking,  designed  to 
bring  the  two  coasts  of  the  great  Republic  in 
closer  communication  for  purposes  of  commerce 
and  defense. 

The  early  estimates  made  by  the  American 
engineers  were  far  too  low,  but  the  French  ex- 
perience had  taught  the  United  States  to  expect 
such  an  outcome.  Indeed,  it  is  doubtful  if  any- 
body believed  that  the  first  estimates  would  not 
be  doubled  or  quadrupled  before  the  canal  was 
finished. 

The  journey  of  the  U.  S.  S.  Oregon  around  the 
Horn  from  Pacific  waters  to  the  theater  of  the  War 
with  Spain  in  the  Caribbean,  in  1898,  impressed 
upon  the  American  public  the  necessity  of  building 
the  canal  as  a  measure  of  national  defense.  Com- 
mercial interests  long  had  been  convinced  of  its 
necessity  as  a  factor  in  both  national  and  inter- 
national trade,  and,  when  it  was  realized  that 
the  Oregon  would  have  saved  8,000  miles  if  there 


Chairman  and  Chief  Engineer 


A  STREET  IN  THE  CITY  OF  PANAMA 


THE  LAND  DIVIDED  11 

had  been  a  canal  at  Panama,  the  American  mind 
was  made  up.  It  determined  that  the  canal 
should  be  built,  whatever  the  cost. 

From  the  very  first  there  was  never  any  question 
that  the  necessary  money  would  be  forthcoming. 
It  is  a  fact  unprecedented  in  all  parliamentary 
history  that  all  of  the  appropriations  necessary 
for  the  construction  and  completion  of  the  Isth- 
mian waterway  were  made  by  Congress  without 
a  word  of  serious  protest. 

During  the  same  War  with  Spain  that  convinced 
the  United  States  that  the  canal  must  be  built, 
a  long  forward  step  was  taken  in  the  science  of 
medicine  as  concerned  with  the  prevention  and 
control  of  tropical  diseases.  The  theory  that 
yellow  fever  was  transmitted  by  mosquitoes  had 
been  proved  by  a  Cuban  physician,  Dr.  Carlos 
Finley,  a  score  of  years  earlier.  An  Englishman, 
Sir  Patrick  Manson,  had  first  shown  that  disease 
might  be  transmitted  by  the  bites  of  insects,  and 
another  Englishman,  Maj.  Roland  Ross,  had 
shown  that  malaria  was  conveyed  by  mosquitoes. 
It  remained,  however,  for  American  army  surgeons 
to  demonstrate,  as  they  did  in  Cuba,  that  yellow 
fever  was  transmissible  only  by  mosquitoes  of 
the  stegomyia  variety  and  by  no  other  means 
whatsoever. 

With  this  knowledge  in  their  possession  the 
Americans  were  able  to  do  what  the  French  were 
not  —  to  control  the  chief  enemy  of  mankind  in 
torrid  climes.  In  the  first  years  of  the  work  the 
public,  and  Congress,  reflecting  its  views,  were  not 
sufficiently  convinced  of  the  efficacy  of  the  new 
scientific  discoveries  to  afford  the  means  for  put- 


12  THE  PANAMA  CANAL 

ting  them  into  effect.  The  Isthmian  Canal  Com- 
mission refused  to  honor  requisitions  for  wire 
screens,  believing  that  they  were  demanded  to 
add  to  the  comfort  and  luxury  of  quarters  on  the 
Zone,  rather  than  for  protection  against  disease. 
But  the  outbreak  of  yellow  fever  in  1905  was  the 
occasion  for  furnishing  the  Sanitary  Department, 
under  Col.  W.  C.  Gorgas,  with  the  necessary 
funds,  and  thus  provided,  he  speedily  and  com- 
pletely stamped  out  the  epidemic.  From  that  time 
on,  no  one  questioned  the  part  that  sanitation 
played  in  the  success  of  the  project.  The  cities 
of  Panama  and  Colon  were  cleaned  up  as  never  were 
tropical  cities  cleaned  before.  All  the  time,  every 
day,  men  fought  mosquitoes  that  the  workers  in 
the  ditch  might  not  be  struck  down  at  their  labors. 

The  Americans,  too,  made  mistakes.  In  the 
beginning  they  attempted  to  build  the  canal  under 
the  direction  of  a  commission  with  headquarters 
in  Washington.  This  commission,  at  long  dis- 
tance and  by  methods  hopelessly  involved  in  red 
tape,  sought  to  direct  the  activities  of  the 
engineer  in  charge  on  the  Isthmus.  The  public 
also  was  impatient  with  the  long  time  required 
for  preparation  and  insistently  demanded  that 
"  the  dirt  begin  to  fly." 

The  work  was  begun  in  1904.  It  proceeded  so 
slowly  that  two  years  later  the  chairman  of  the 
Isthmian  Canal  Commission  asserted  that  it  must 
be  let  out  to  a  private  contractor,  this  being,  in 
his  opinion,  the  only  way  possible  to  escape  the 
toils  of  governmental  red  tape.  The  then  chief 
engineer,  the  second  man  who  had  held  that  position 
while  fretting  under  these  methods,  was  opposed 


THE  LAND  DIVIDED  13 

to  the  contract  system.  Bids  were  asked  for, 
however,  but  all  of  them  were  rejected. 

Fortunately,  Congress  from  the  beginning  had 
left  the  President  a  practically  free  hand  in  di- 
recting the  course  of  the  project.  Mr.  Roosevelt 
reorganized  the  commission,  made  Col.  George 
W.  Goethals,  an  Army  engineer,  chairman  of  the 
commission  and  chief  engineer  of  the  canal. 
The  constitution  of  the  commission  was  so  changed 
as  to  leave  all  the  power  in  the  hands  of  the  chair- 
man and  to  lay  all  of  the  responsibility  upon  his 
shoulders. 

It  was  a  master  stroke  of  policy,  and  the  event 
proved  the  choice  of  the  man  to  be  admirable  in 
every  way.  From  the  day  the  Army  engineers 
took  charge  there  was  never  any  more  delay,  never 
any  halt  in  progress,  and  the  only  difficulties 
encountered  were  those  of  resistant  Nature  (such 
as  the  slides  in  Culebra  Cut)  and  those  of  misin- 
formed public  opinion  (such  as  the  absurd  criticism 
of  the  Gatun  Dam). 

The  Americans,  too,  in  the  early  stages  of  the 
work  were  hampered  by  reason  of  the  fact  that 
the  final  decision  as  to  whether  to  build  a  sea- 
level  canal  or  a  lock  canal  was  so  long  delayed 
by  the  conflicting  views  of  the  partisans  of  each 
type  in  Congress,  in  the  executive  branches  of 
the  Government,  and  among  the  engineers.  This 
problem,  too,  was  solved  by  Mr.  Roosevelt.  He 
boldly  set  aside  the  opinion  of  the  majority  of  the 
engineers  who  had  been  called  in  consultation  on 
the  problem,  and  directed  the  construction  of  a 
lock  canal.  The  wisdom  of  this  decision  has  been 
so  overwhelmingly  demonstrated  that  the  con- 


14  THE  PANAMA  CANAL 

troversy  that  once  raged  so  furiously  now  seems 
to  have  been  but  a  tiny  tempest  in  an  insignificant 
teapot. 

One  other  feature  of  the  course  of  events  under 
the  American  regime  at  Panama  must  be  considered. 
Graft  and  corruption  had  ruined  the  French;  the 
Americans  were  determined  that  whether  they 
succeeded  or  not,  there  should  be  no  scandal. 
This,  indeed,  in  part  explains  why  there  was  so 
much  apparently  useless  circumlocution  in  the 
early  stages  of  the  project.  Congress,  the  President, 
the  engineers,  all  who  were  in  responsible  position, 
were  determined  that  there  should  be  no  graft. 
'There  was  none. 

Not  only  were  the  Americans  determined  that 
fche  money  voted  for  the  canal  should  be  honestly 
and  economically  expended,  but  they  were  deter- 
mined, also,  that  the  workers  on  the  canal  should 
be  well  paid  and  well  cared  for.  To  this  end  they 
paid  not  only  higher  wages  than  were  current  at 
home  for  the  same  work,  but  they  effectively 
shielded  the  workers  from  the  exactions  and  extor- 
tions of  Latin  and  Oriental  merchants  by  estab- 
lishing a  commissary  through  which  the  employees 
were  furnished  wholesome  food  at  reasonable 
prices  —  prices  lower,  indeed,  than  those  pre- 
vailing at  home. 

As  a  result  of  these  things  the  spirit  of  the  Ameri- 
cans on  the  Canal  Zone,  from  the  chairman  and 
chief  engineer  down  to  the  actual  diggers,  was 
that  of  a  determination  to  lay  the  barrier  low, 
and  to  complete  the  job  well  within  the  limit  of 
time  and  at  the  lowest  possible  cost.  In  this 
spirit  all  Americans  should  rejoice,  for  it  is  the 


THE  LAND  DIVIDED  15 

highest  expression  of  the  nearest  approach  we  have 
made  to  the  ideals  upon  which  the  Fathers  founded 
our  Republic. 

It  is  impossible  to  leave  out  of  the  reckoning, 
in  telling  the  story  of  the  canal,  the  checkered 
history  of  the  diplomatic  engagements  on  the 
part  of  the  United  States,  that  have  served  both 
to  help  and  to  hinder  the  undertaking.  What  is 
now  the  Republic  of  Panama  has  been,  for  the 
greater  part  of  the  time  since  continental  Latin 
America  threw  off  the  yoke  of  Spain,  a  part  of 
that  Republic  having  its  capital  at  Bogota,  now 
under  the  name  of  Colombia,  sometimes  under 
the  name  of  New  Granada,  sometimes  a  part  of 
a  federation  including  Venezuela  and  Ecuador. 
The  United  States,  by  virtue  of  the  Monroe 
doctrine,  always  asserted  a  vague  and  undefined 
interest  in  the  local  affairs  of  the  Isthmus.  This 
was  tran3lated  into  a  concrete  interest  when,  in 
1846,  a  treaty  was  made,  covering  the  construction 
of  the  railroad  across  the  Isthmus,  the  United 
States  engaging  always  to  keep  the  transit  free  and 
open.  Great  Britain,  by  virtue  of  small  terri- 
torial holdings  in  Central  America  and  of  larger 
claims  there,  also  had  a  concrete  interest,  which 
was  acknowledged  by  the  United  States,  in  the 
Clayton-Bulwer  treaty  of  1850,  under  which  a  pro- 
jected canal  should  be  neutral  under  the  guarantee 
of  the  Governments  of  the  United  States  and 
Great  Britain. 

For  years  the  United  States  was  inclined  to 
favor  a  canal  cut  through  Nicaragua,  rather  than 
one  at  Panama,  and,  after  1898,  when  the  American 
nation  had  made  up  its  mind  to  build  a  canal  some- 


16  THE  PANAMA  CANAL 

where,  the  partisans  of  the  Panama  and  Nicaragua 
routes  waged  a  bitter  controversy. 

Congress  finally  decided  the  issue  by  giving 
the  President  authority  to  construct  a  canal  at 
Panama,  with  the  proviso  that  should  he  be 
unable  to  negotiate  a  satisfactory  treaty  with 
Colombia,  which  then  owned  the  Isthmus,  he 
should  proceed  to  construct  the  canal  through 
Nicaragua.  Under  this  threat  of  having .  the 
scepter  of  commercial  power  depart  forever  from 
Panama,  Colombia  negotiated  a  treaty,  known 
as  the  Hay-Herran  treaty,  giving  the  United 
States  the  right  to  construct  the  canal.  This 
treaty,  however,  failed  of  ratification  by  the 
Colombian  Congress,  with  the  connivance  of  the 
very  Colombian  President  who  had  negotiated  it. 

But  President  Roosevelt  was  most  unwilling 
to  accept  the  alternative  given  him  by  Congress  — 
that  of  undertaking  the  canal  at  Nicaragua  — 
and  this  unwillingness,  to  say  the  least,  encour- 
aged a  revolution  in  Panama.  This  revolution 
separated  the  Isthmus  from  the  Republic  of  Co- 
lombia, and  set  up  the  new  Republic  of  Panama. 
As  a  matter  of  fact,  Panama  had  had  but  the 
slenderest  relations  with  the  Bogota  Government, 
had  been  for  years  in  the  past  an  independent 
State,  had  never  ceased  to  assert  its  own  sov- 
ereignty, and  had  been,  indeed,  the  theater  of 
innumerable  revolutions. 

The  part  the  United  States  played  in  encourag- 
ing this  revolution,  the  fact  that  the  United  States 
authorities  prevented  the  transit  of  Colombian 
troops  over  the  Panama  Railway,  and  that  Ameri- 
can marines  were  landed  at  the  time,  has  led  to 


THE  LAND  DIVIDED  17 

no  end  of  hostile  criticism,  not  to  speak  of  the 
still  pending  and  unsettled  claims  made  by  Colom- 
bia against  the  United  States.  Mr.  Roosevelt 
himself,  years  after  the  event  and  in  a  moment  of 
frankness,  declared:  "I  took  Panama,  and  left 
Congress  to  debate  it  later." 

Whatever  may  be  the  final  outcome  of  our 
controversy  with  Colombia,  it  may  be  confidently 
predicted  that  history  will  justify  the  coup  d' 
etat  on  the  theory  that  Panama  was  the  best 
possible  site  for  the  interoceanic  canal,  and  that 
the  rupture  of  relations  between  the  territory 
of  the  Isthmus  and  the  Colombian  Republic  was 
the  best  possible  solution  of  a  confused  and  tangled 
problem. 

These  diplomatic  entanglements,  however,  as 
the  canal  is  completed,  leave  two  international 
disputes  unsettled  —  the  one  with  Colombia  about 
the  genesis  of  the  canal  undertaking,  and  the 
other  with  Great  Britain  about  the  terms  of  its 
operation. 

Congress,  in  its  wisdom,  saw  fit  to  exempt 
American  vessels  engaged  exclusively  in  coastwise 
trade  —  that  is  to  say,  in  trade  solely  between 
ports  of  the  United  States  —  from  payment  of 
tolls  in  transit  through  the  canal.  This  exemption 
was  protested  by  Great  Britain  on  the  ground 
that  the  Hay-Pauncefote  treaty,  which  took  the 
place  of  the  Clayton-Bulwer  treaty,  provided 
that  the  canal  should  be  open  to  all  nations  on 
exact  and  equal  terms.  The  future  holds  the 
termination  of  both  these  disputes. 

Congress,  that  never  begrudged  an  appropria- 
tion, indulged  in  many  disputes  concerning  the 


18  THE  PANAMA  CANAL 

building  and  operation  of  the  canal.  First,  there 
was  the  controversy  as  to  site,  between  Nicaragua 
and  Panama.  Next,  came  the  question  as  to 
whether  the  canal  should  be  at  sea  level  or  of  a 
lock  type.  Then  there  was  the  question  of  tolls, 
and  the  exemption  of  American  coastwise  traffic. 
But,  perhaps  the  most  acrimonious  debates  were 
on  the  question  as  to  whether  or  not  the  canal 
should  be  fortified.  Those  who  favored  forti- 
fication won  their  victory,  and  the  canal  was  made, 
from  a  military  standpoint,  a  very  Gibraltar 
for  the  American  defense  of,  and  control  over, 
the  Caribbean.  That  this  was  inevitable  was 
assured  by  two  facts:  One  that  the  trip  of  the 
Oregon  in  1898  crystallized  public  sentiment  in 
favor  of  constructing  the  canal;  and  the  other 
that  the  canal  itself  was  wrought  by  Army  engineers 
under  the  direction  of  Colonel  Goethals.  Colonel 
Goethals  never  for  a  moment  considered  the 
possibility  that  Congress  would  vote  against  forti- 
fications, and  the  whole  undertaking  was  carried 
forward  on  that  basis. 

If  the  military  idea,  the  notion  of  its  necessity 
as  a  feature  of  the  national  defense,  was  the 
determining  factor  in  initiating  the  canal  project,  it 
remains  a  fact  that  its  chief  use  will  be  commercial, 
and  that  its  money  return,  whether  small  or  large, 
nearly  all  will  be  derived  from  tolls  assessed  upon 
merchant  vessels  passing  through  it. 

The  question  of  the  probable  traffic  the  canal 
will  be  called  upon  to  handle  was  studied  as 
perhaps  no  other  world-wide  problem  of  trans- 
portation ever  was.  Prof.  Emory  R.  Johnson 
was  the  student  of  this  phase  of  the  question  from 


THE  THREE  PRESIDENTS  UNDER  WHOSE  DIRECTION 
THE  CANAL  WAS  BUILT 


THE  LAND  DIVIDED  19 

the  beginning  to  the  end.  He  estimates  that  the 
canal  in  the  first  few  years  of  its  operation  will  have 
a  traffic  of  10,000,000  tons  of  shipping  each  year, 
and  that  by  1975  this  will  have  increased  to  80,000,- 
000  tons,  the  full  capacity  of  the  canal  in  its 
present  form.  Provision  has  been  made  against 
this  contingency  by  the  engineers  who  have  so 
constructed  the  canal  that  a  third  set  of  locks  at 
each  end  may  be  constructed  at  a  cost  of  about 
$25,000,000,  and  these  will  be  sufficient  almost 
to  double  the  present  ultimate  capacity,  and  to 
take  care  of  a  larger  volume  of  traffic  than  now 
can  be  foreseen. 

Americans  are  interested,  first  of  all,  in  what 
the  canal  will  do  for  their  own  domestic  trade. 
It  brings  Seattle  7,800  miles  nearer  to  New  York; 
San  Francisco,  8,800  miles  nearer  to  New  Orleans; 
Honolulu  6,600  miles  nearer  to  New  York  than 
by  the  Strait  of  Magellan.  Such  saving  in 
distance  for  water-borne  freight  works  a  great 
economy,  and  inevitably  must  have  a  tremendous 
effect  upon  transcontinental  American  commerce. 

In  foreign  commerce,  also,  some  of  the  distances 
saved  are  tremendous.  For  instance,  Guayaquil, 
in  Ecuador,  is  7,400  miles  nearer  to  New  York  by 
the  canal  than  by  the  Strait  of  Magellan;  Yoko- 
hama is  nearly  4,000  miles  nearer  to  New  York 
by  Panama  than  by  Suez;  and  Melbourne  is 
1,300  miles  closer  to  Liverpool  by  Panama  than 
by  either  Suez  or  the  Cape  of  Good  Hope.  Curi- 
ously enough,  the  distance  from  Manila  to  New 
York,  by  way  of  Suez  and  Panama,  is  almost  the 
same,  the  difference  in  favor  of  Panama  being 
only  41  miles  out  of  a  total  of  11,548  miles.  The 


20  THE  PANAMA  CANAL 

difference  in  distance  from  Hongkong  to  New  York 
by  the  two  canals  is  even  less,  being  only  18  miles, 
this  slight  advantage  favoring  Suez. 

But  it  is  not  by  measure  of  distances  that 
the  effect  of  the  canal  on  international  commerce 
may  be  measured.  It  spells  the  development  of 
the  all  but  untouched  western  coast  of  South 
America  and  Mexico.  It  means  a  tremendous 
up-building  of  foreign  commerce  in  our  own  Mis- 
sissippi Valley  and  Gulf  States.  It  means  an 
unprecedented  commercial  and  industrial  awaken- 
ing in  the  States  of  our  Pacific  coast  and  the 
Provinces  of  Western  Canada. 

While  it  was  not  projected  as  a  money-making 
proposition,  it  will  pay  for  its  maintenance  and  a 
slight  return  upon  the  money  invested  from  the 
beginning,  and  in  a  score  of  years  will  be  not  only 
self-supporting,  but  will  yield  a  sufficient  income 
to  provide  for  the  amortization  of  its  capital  in  a 
hundred  years. 

The  story  of  how  this  titanic  work  was  under- 
taken, of  how  it  progressed,  and  of  how  it  was 
crowned  with  success,  is  a  story  without  a  parallel 
in  the  annals  of  man.  The  canal  itself,  as  Am- 
bassador Bryce  has  said,  is  the  greatest  liberty 
man  has  ever  taken  with  nature. 

Its  digging  was  a  steady  and  progressive  vic- 
tory over  sullen  and  resistant  nature.  The  ditch 
through  Culefara  Mountain  was  eaten  out  by 
huge  steam  shovels  of  such  mechanical  perfection 
that  they  seemed  almost  to  be  alive,  almost  to 
know  what  they  were  doing.  The  rocks  and 
earth  they  bit  out  of  the  mountain  side  were 
carried  away  by  trains  operating  in  a  system  of 


THE  LAND  DIVIDED  21 

such  skill  that  it  is  the  admiration  of  all  the  trans- 
portation world,  for  the  problem  of  disposing  of 
the  excavated  material  was  even  greater  than 
that  of  taking  it  out. 

The  control  of  the  torrential  Chagres  River 
by  the  Gatun  Dam,  changing  the  river  from  the 
chief  menace  of  the  canal  to  its  essential  and  salient 
feature,  was  no  less  an  undertaking.  And,  long 
after  Gatun  Dam  and  Culebra  Cut  cease  to  be 
marvels,  long  after  the  Panama  Canal  becomes  as 
much  a  matter  of  course  as  the  Suez  Canal,  men 
still  will  be  thrilled  and  impressed  by  the  wonderful 
machinery  of  the  locks  --  those  great  water  stair- 
ways, operated  by  machinery  as  ingenious  as 
gigantic,  and  holding  in  check  with  their  mighty 
gates  such  floods  as  never  elsewhere  have  been 
impounded. 

It  is  a  wonderful  story  that  this  book  is  under- 
taking to  tell.  There  will  be  much  in  it  of  engi- 
neering feats  and  accomplishments,  because  its 
subject  is  the  greatest  of  all  engineering  accomplish- 
ments. There  will  be  much  in  it  of  the  things 
that  were  done  at  Panama  during  the  period  of 
construction,  for  never  were  such  things  done 
before.  There  will  be  much  in  it  of  the  history 
of  how  and  why  the  American  Government  came 
to  undertake  the  work,  for  nothing  is  of  greater 
importance.  There  will  be  something  in  it  of 
the  future,  looking  with  conservatism  and  care 
as  far  ahead  as  may  be,  to  outline  what  the  com- 
pletion of  this  canal  will  mean  not  only  for  the 
people  of  the  United  States,  but  for  the  people  of 
all  the  world. 

Much  that  might  be  written  of  the  romantic 


22  THE  PANAMA  CANAL 

history  of  the  Isthmian  territory  —  tales  of  dis- 
coverers and  conquistadores,  wild  tales  of  pirates 
and  buccaneers,  serio-comic  narratives  of  intrigue 
and  revolution  —  is  left  out  of  this  book,  because, 
while  it  is  interesting,  it  now  belongs  to  that 
antiquity  which  boasts  of  many,  many  books; 
and  this  volume  is  to  tell  not  of  Panama,  but  of 
the  Panama  Canal  —  on  the  threshold  of  its 
story,  fitted  by  a  noble  birth  for  a  noble  destiny. 


CHAPTER  II 

GREATEST  ENGINEERING  PROJECT 

THE  Panama  Canal  is  the  greatest  engineer- 
ing project  of  all  history.  There  is  more 
than  the  patriotic  prejudice  of  a  people 
proud  of  their  own  achievements  behind  this 
assertion.  Men  of  all  nations  concede  it  without 
question,  and  felicitate  the  United  States  upon 
the  remarkable  success  with  which  it  has  been 
carried  out.  So  distinguished  an  authority  as 
the  Rt.  Hon.  James  Bryce,  late  British  ambassador 
to  Washington,  and  a  man  not  less  famous  in 
the  world  of  letters  than  successful  in  the  field 
of  diplomacy,  declared  before  the  National  Geo- 
graphic Society  that  not  only  is  the  Panama  Canal 
the  greatest  undertaking  of  the  past  or  the  present 
but  that  even  the  future  seems  destined  never  to 
offer  any  land-dividing,  world-uniting  project  com- 
parable to  it  in  magnitude  or  consequence. 

We  are  told  that  the  excavations  total  232,000,- 
000  cubic  yards;  that  the  Gatun  Dam  contains 
21,000,000  cubic  yards  of  material;  and  that  the 
locks  and  spillways  required  the  laying  of  some 
4,500,000  cubic  yards  of  concrete.  But  if  one 
is  to  realize  the  meaning  of  this  he  must  get  out 
of  the  realm  of  cubic  yards  and  into  the  region  of 
concrete  comparisons.  Every  one  is  familiar 
with  the  size  and  shape  of  the  Washington  Monu- 

23 


24  THE  PANAMA  CANAL 

ment.  With  its  base  of  55  feet  square  and  its 
height  of  555  feet,  it  is  one  of  the  most  imposing 
of  all  the  hand  reared  structures  of  the  earth. 
Yet  the  material  excavated  from  the  big  water- 
way at  Panama  represents  5,840  such  solid-built 
shafts.  Placed  in  a  row  with  base  touching  base  they 
would  traverse  the  entire  Isthmus  and  reach  10  miles 
beyond  deep  water  in  the  two  oceans  at  Panama. 
Placed  in  a  square  with  base  touching  base  they 
would  cover  an  area  of  475  acres.  If  all  the  material 
were  placed  in  one  solid  shaft  with  a  base  as 
large  as  the  average  city  block,  it  would  tower 
nearly  100,000  feet  in  the  air. 

Another  illustration  of  the  magnitude  of  the 
quantity  of  material  excavated  at  Panama  may 
be  had  from  a  comparison  with  the  pyramid  of 
Cheops,  of  which  noble  pile  some  one  has  said 
that  "All  things  fear  Time,  but  Time  fears  only 
Cheops.55  We  are  told  that  it  required  a  hundred 
thousand  men  10  years  to  make  ready  for  the 
building  of  that  great  structure,  and  £0  years  more 
to  build  it.  There  were  times  at  Panama  when,  in 
26  working  days,  more  material  was  removed  from 
the  canal  than  was  required  to  build  Cheops,  and 
from  first  to  last  the  Americans  removed  mate- 
rial enough  to  build  sixty-odd  pyramids  such  as 
Cheops.  Were  it  all  placed  in  one  such  structure, 
with  a  base  as  large  as  that  of  Cheops,  the  apex 
would  tower  higher  into  the  sky  than  the  loftiest 
mountain  on  the  face  of  the  earth. 

Still  another  way  of  arriving  at  a  true  con- 
ception of  the  work  of  digging  the  big  water- 
way is  to  consider  that  enough  material  had  to 
be  removed  by  the  Americans  to  make  a  tunnel 


GREATEST  ENGINEERING  PROJECT     2i. 

through  the  earth  at  the  equator  more  than  12  feet  ) 
square.  «j 

But  perhaps  the  comparison  that  will  best  il- 
lustrate the  immensity  of  the  task  of  digging 
the  ditch  is  that  of  the  big  Lidgerwood  dirt  car, 


A  GRAPHIC  REPRESENTATION  OF  THE  MATERIAL  HANDLED  AT  PANAMA 

on  which  so  much  of  the  spoil  has  been  hauled 
away.  Each  car  holds  about  20  cubic  yards  of 
dirt,  and  21  cars  make  a  train.  The  material 
removed  from  the  canal  would  fill  a  string  of  these 
cars  reaching  about  three  and  a  half  times  around 
the  earth,  and  it  would  take  a  string  of  Panama 
Railroad  engines  reaching  almost  from  New  York 
to  Honolulu  to  move  them. 

Yet  all  these  comparisons  have  taken  account 
of  the  excavations  only.  The  construction  of 
the  Panama  Canal  represents  much  besides  dig- 
ging a  ditch,  for  there  were  some  immense  struc- 
tures to  erect.  Principal  among  these,  so  far  as 
magnitude  is  concerned,  was  the  Gatun  Dam, 
that  big  ridge  of  earth  a  mile  and  a  half  long, 
half  a  mile  thick  at  the  base,  and  105  feet  high. 
It  contains  some  21,000,000  cubic  yards  of  mate- 
rial, enough  to  build  more  than  500  solid  shafts 
like  the  Washington  Monument.  Then  there 
was  the  dam  at  Pedro  Miguel  —  "Peter  Magill," 


26  tTHE  PANAMA  CANAL 

as  the  irreverent  boys  of  Panama  christened  it  — 
and  another  at  Miraflores,  each  of  them  small  in 
comparison  with  the  great  embankment  at  Gatun, 
but  together  containing  as  much  material  as  70 
solid  shafts  like  our  Washington  Monument. 

Besides  these  structures  there  still  remain  the 
locks  and  spillways,  with  their  four  and  a  half 
million  cubic  yards  of  concrete  and  their  hundreds 
and  thousands  of  tons  of  steel. 

With  all  these  astonishing  comparisons  in 
mind,  is  it  strange  that  the  digging  of  the  Panama 
Canal  is  the  world's  greatest  engineering  project? 
Are  they  not  enough  to  stamp  it  as  the  greatest 
single  achievement  in  human  history?  Yet  even 
they,  pregnant  of  meaning  as  they  are,  fail  to 
reveal  the  full  and  true  proportions  of  the  work 
of  our  illustrious  army  of  canal  diggers.  They  tell 
nothing  of  the  difficulties  which  were  overcome  — 
difficulties  before  which  the  bravest  spirit  might 
have  quailed. 

When  the  engineers  laid  out  the  present  proj- 
ect, they  calculated  that  103,000,000  cubic  yards 
of  material  would  have  to  be  excavated,  and  pre- 
dicted that  the  canal  diggers  would  remove*  that 
much  in  nine  years.  Since  that  time  the  amount 
of  material  to  be  taken  out  has  increased  from  one 
cause  or  another  until  it  now  stands  at  more  than 
double  the  original  estimate.  At  one  time  there 
was  an  increase  for  widening  the  Culebra  Cut 
by  50  per  cent.  At  another  time  there  was  an 
increase  to  take  care  of  the  225  acres  of  slides 
that  were  pouring  into  the  big  ditch  like  glaciers. 
At  still  another  time  there  was  an  increase  for 
the  creation  of  a  small  lake  between  the  locks  at 


GREATEST  ENGINEERING  PROJECT     27 

Pedro  Miguel  and  Miraflores.  At  yet  another 
time  it  was  found  that  the  Chagres  River  and  the 
currents  of  the  Atlantic  and  the  Pacific  Oceans 
were  depositing  large  quantities  of  silt  and  mud 
in  the  canal,  and  this  again  raised  the  total  amount 
of  material  to  be  excavated.  But  none  of  these 
unforeseen  obstacles  and  additional  burdens  dis- 
mayed the  engineers.  They  simply  attacked  their 
problem  with  renewed  zeal  and  quickened  en- 
ergy, with  the  result  that  they  excavated  in 
seven  years  of  actual  operations  more  than  twice 
as  much jnaterial  as  they  were  expected  to  excavate 
in  nine  years.  In  other  words,  the  material  to 
be  removed  was  increased  125  per  cent  and  yet 
the  canal  was  opened  at  least  12  months  ahead 
of  the  time  predicted. 

How  this  unprecedented  efficiency  was  developed 
forms  in  itself  a  remarkable  story  of  achievement. 
The  engineers  met  with  insistent  demands  that 
they  "make  the  dirt  fly."  The  people  had  seen 
many  months  of  preparation,  but  they  had  no 
patience  with  that;  they  wanted  to  see  the  ditch 
begin  to  deepen.  It  was  a  critical  stage  in  the 
history  of  the  project.  If  the  dirt  should  fail  to 
fly  public  sentiment  would  turn  away  from  the 
canal. 

So  John  F.  Stevens  addressed  himself  to  making 
it  fly.  Before  he  left  he  had  brought  the  monthly 
output  almost  up  to  the  million  yard  mark. 
When  that  mark  was  passed  the  President  of  the 
United  States,  on  behalf  of  himself  and  the  nation, 
sent  a  congratulatory  message  to  the  canal  army. 
Many  people  asserted  that  it  was  nothing  but  a 
burst  of  speed;  but  the  canal  diggers  squared 


28  THE  PANAMA  CANAL 

themselves  for  a  still  higher  record.  They  forced 
up  the  mark  to  two  million  a  month,  and  straight- 
way used  that  as  a  rallying  point  from  which  to 
charge  the  heights  three  million.  Once  again 
the  standard  was  raised;  "four  million"  became 
the  slogan.  Wherever  that  slogan  was  flashed 
upon  a  Y.  M.  C.  A.  stereoptican  screen  there  was 
cheering  —  cheering  that  expressed  a  determined 
purpose.  Finally,  when  March,  1909,  came  around 
all  hands  went  to  work  with  set  jaws,  and  for 
the  only  time  in  the  history  of  the  world  there 
was  excavated  on  a  single  project,  4,000,000 
cubic  yards  of  material  in  one  month. 

With  the  dirt  moving,  came  the  question  of 
the  cost  of  making  it  fly.  By  eliminating  a  bit 
of  lost  motion  here  and  taking  up  a  bit  of  waste 
there,  even  with  the  price  of  skilled  labor  fully 
50  per  cent  higher  on  the  Isthmus  than  in  the 
States,  unit  costs  were  sent  down  to  surprisingly 
low  levels.  For  instance,  in  1908  it  was  costing 
11 J  cents  a  cubic  yard  to  operate  a  steam  shovel; 
in  1911  this  had  been  forced  down  to  8J  cents  a 
yard.  In  1908  more  than  18|  cents  were  expended 
to  haul  a  cubic  yard  of  spoil  8  miles;  in  1911  a 
cubic  yard  was  hauled  12  miles  for  a  little  more 
than  15  £  cents. 

Some  of  the  efficiency  results  were  astonishing. 
To  illustrate:  One  would  think  that  the  working 
power  of  a  ton  of  dynamite  would  be  as  great 
at  one  time  as  another;  and  yet  the  average 
ton  of  dynamite  in  1911  did  just  twice  as  much 
work  as  in  1908.  No  less  than  $50,000  a  month 
was  saved  by  shaking  out  cement  bags. 

It  was  this  wonderful  efficiency  that  enabled 


GREATEST  ENGINEERING  PROJECT     29 

the  United  States  to  build  the  canal  for  $375,- 
000,000  when  without  it  the  cost  might  have 
reached  $600,000,000.  In  1908,  after  the  army 
had  been  going  at  regulation  double-quick  for  a 
year,  a  board  was  appointed  to  estimate  just  how 
much  material  would  have  to  be  taken  out,  and 
how  much  it  would  cost.  That  board  estimated 
that  the  project  as  then  planned  would  require 
the  excavation  of  135,000,000  cubic  yards  of 
material,  and  that  the  total  cost  of  the  canal  as 
then  contemplated,  would  be  $375,000,000.  Also 
it  was  estimated  that  the  canal  would  be  completed 
by  January  1,  1915.  After  that  time  the  amount 
of  material  to  be  excavated  was  increased  by 
97,000,000  cubic  yards,  and  yet  so  great  was  the 
efficiency  developed  that  the  savings  effected 
permitted  that  great  excess  of  material  to  be 
removed  without  the  additional  expense  of  a  single 
penny  above  the  estimates  of  1908,  and  in  less 
time  than  was  forecast. 

Although  the  difficulties  that  beset  the  canal 
diggers  were  such  as  engineers  never  before  en- 
countered, they  were  met  and  brushed  aside,  and 
all  the  world's  engineering  records  were  smashed 
into  smithereens.  It  required  20  years  to  build 
the  Suez  Canal,  through  a  comparatively  dry  and 
sandy  region.  When  the  work  at  Panama  was 
at  its  height  the  United  States  was  excavating 
the  equivalent  of  a  Suez  Canal  every  15  months. 
Likewise  it  required  many  years  to  complete 
the  Manchester  Ship  Canal  between  Liverpool  and 
Manchester,  a  distance  of  35  miles.  This  canal 
cost  so  much  more  than  was  estimated  that  money 
was  raised  for  its  completion  only  with  the  greatest 


30  THE  PANAMA  CANAL 

difficulty.  Yet  at  Panama  the  Americans  dug 
four  duplicates  of  the  Manchester  Ship  Canal 
in  five  years.  All  of  this  was  done  in  spite  of 
the  fact  that  they  had  to  work  in  a  moist,  hot, 
enervating  climate  where  for  nine  months  in  a 
year  the  air  seems  filled  with  moisture  to  the 
point  of  saturation,  and  where,  for  more  than  half 
the  length  of  the  great  ditch,  the  annual  rainfall 
often  amounts  to  as  much  as  10  feet  —  all  of 
this  falling  in  the  nine  months  of  the  wet  season. 

A  few  comparisons  outside  of  the  construction 
itself  will  serve  to  illustrate  the  tremendous  pro- 
portions of  the  work.  Paper  money  was  not 
handled  at  all  in  paying  off  the  canal  army.  It 
took  three  days  to  pay  off  the  force  with  American 
gold  and  Panaman  silver.  When  pay  day  was 
over  there  had  been  given  into  the  hands  of  the 
Americans,  and  thrown  into  the  hats  of  the  Span- 
iards and  West  Indian  negroes,  1,600  pounds  of 
gold  and  24  tons  of  silver.  When  it  is  remembered 
that  this  performance  was  repeated  every  month 
for  seven  years,  one  may  imagine  the  enormous 
outlay  of  money  for  labor. 

/The  commissary  also  illustrates  'the  magnitude 
of  the  work.  Five  million  loaves  of  bread,  a 
hundred  thousand  pounds  of  cheese,  more  than 
9,000,000  pounds  of  meat,  half  a  million  pounds 
of  poultry,  more  than  a  thousand  carloads  of  ice, 
more  than  a  million  pounds  of  onions,  half  a  mil- 
lion pounds  of  butter  —  these  are  some  of  the 
items  handled  in  a  single  year. 

Wherever  one  turns  he  finds  things  which  fur- 
nish collateral  evidence  of  the  magnitude  of  the 
work.  The  Sanitary  Department  used  each  year 


GREATEST  ENGINEERING  PROJECT     31 

150,000  gallons  of  mosquito  oil,  distributed 
thousands  of  pounds  of  quinine,  cut  and  burned 
millions  of  square  yards  of  brush,  and  spent  hah6 
a  million  dollars  for  hospital  maintenance. 

No  other  great  engineering  project  has  allowed 
such  a  remarkable  "margin  of  safety"  —  the 
engineering  term  for  doing  things  better  than  they 
need  to  be  done.  The  engineers  who  dug  the 
canal  took  nothing  for  granted.  No  rule  of 
physics  was  so  plain  or  so  obvious  as  to  escape 
actual  physical  proof  before  its  acceptance,  when 
such  proof  was  possible.  No  one  who  knows  how 
the  engineers  approached  the  subject,  how  they 
resolved  every  doubt  on  the  side  of  safety,  and 
how  they  kept  so  far  away  from  the  danger  line 
as  actually  to  make  their  precaution  seem  excessive 
can  doubt  that  the  Panama  Canal  will  go  down 
in  history  as  the  most  thorough  as  well  as  the 
most  extensive  piece  of  engineering  in  the  world. 


CHAPTER  III 

GATUN   DAM 

THE  key  to  the  whole  Panama  Canal  is 
Gatun  Dam,  that  great  mass  of  earth  that 
impounds    the    waters    of    the    Chagres 
River,  makes  of  the  central  portion  of  the  canal 
a  great  navigable  lake  with  its  surface  85  feet 
above  the  level  of  the  sea,  and,  in  short,  renders 
practicable  the  operation  of  a  lock  type  of  canal 
across  the  Isthmus. 

Around  no  other  structure  in  the  history  of 
engineering  did  the  fires  of  controversy  rage  so 
furiously  and  so  persistently  as  they  raged  for  sev- 
eral years  around  Gatun  Dam.  It  was  attacked 
on  this  side  and  that;  its  foundations  were  pro- 
nounced bad  and  its  superstructure  not  watertight. 
Doubt  as  to  the  stability  of  such  a  structure 
led  some  of  the  members  of  the  Board  of  Con- 
sulting Engineers  to  recommend  a  sea-level  canal. 
Further  examination  of  the  site  and  experimen- 
tation with  the  materials  of  which  it  was  proposed 
to  construct  it,  showed  the  engineers  that  it  was 
safe  as  to  site  and  satisfactory  as  to  superstructure. 
The  country  had  about  accepted  their  conclusions, 
when,  in  the  fall  of  1908,  there  was  a  very  heavy 
rain  on  the  Isthmus,  and  some  stone  which  had 
been  deposited  on  the  soil  on  the  upstream  toe  of 
the  dam,  sank  out  of  sight  —  just  as  the  engineers 


GATUN  DAM  S3 

X, 

expected  it  to  do.  A  story  thereupon  was  sent 
to  the  States  announcing  that  the  Gatun  Dam  had 
given  way  and  that  the  Chagres  River  was  rush- 
ing unrestrained  through  it  to  the  sea.  The  public 
never  stopped  to  recall  that  the  dam  was  not  yet 
there  to  give  way,  or  to  inquire  exactly  what  had 
happened,  and  a  wave  of  public  distrust  swept  over 
the  country. 

To  make  absolutely  certain  that  everything  was 
all  right,  and  to  restore  the  confidence  of  the  people 
in  the  big  project,  President  Roosevelt  selected  the 
best  board  of  engineers  he  could  find  and  sent  them 
to  the  Isthmus  in  company  with  President-elect 
Taf  t  to  see  exactly  what  was  the  situation  at  Gatun. 

They  examined  the  site,  they  examined  the 
material,  they  examined  the  evidence  in  Colonel 
Goethal's  hands.  When  they  got  through  they 
announced  that  they  had  only  one  serious  criti- 
cism to  make  of  the  dam  as  proposed.  "It  is  not 
necessary  to  tie  a  horse  with  a  log  chain  to  make 
sure  he  can  not  break  away,"  observed  one  of 
them,  "a  smaller  chain  would  serve  just  as  well." 
And  so  they  recommended  that  the  crest  of  the 
dam  be  lowered  from  135  feet  to  115  feet.  Still 
later  this  was  cut  to  105  feet.  They  found  that 
the  underground  river  whose  existence  was  urged 
by  all  who  opposed  a  lock  canal,  flowed  nowhere 
save  in  the  fertile  valleys  of  imagination.  The 
engineers  had  known  this  a  long  time,  but  out  of 
deference  to  the  doubters  they  had  decided  to 
drive  a  lot  of  interlocking  sheet  piling  across  the 
Chagres  Valley.  "What's  the  use  trying  to  stop 
a  river  that  does  not  exist?"  queried  the  engineers, 
and  so  the  sheet  piling  was  omitted. 


34  THE  PANAMA  CANAL 

As  a  matter  of  fact,  Gatun  Dam  proved  the 
happiest  surprise  of  the  whole  waterway.  In 
every  particular  it  more  than  fulfilled  the  most 
optimistic  prophecies  of  the  engineers.  They  said 
that  what  little  seepage  there  would  be  would  not 
hurt  anything;  the  dam  answered  by  showing  no 
seepage  at  all.  They  said  that  the  hydraulic  core 
would  be  practically  impervious;  it  proved  abso- 
lutely so.  Where  it  was  once  believed  that  Gatun 
Dam  would  be  the  hardest  task  on  the  Isthmus  it 
proved  to  be  the  easiest.  Culebra  Cut  exchanged 
places  with  it  in  that  regard. 

Gatun  Dam  contains  nearly  22,000,000  cubic 
yards  of  material.  Assuming  that  it  takes  two 
horses  to  pull  a  cubic  yard  of  material  it  would  re- 
quire twice  as  many  horses  as  there  are  in  the 
United  States  to  move  the  dam  were  it  put  on 
wheels.  Loaded  into  ordinary  two-horse  dirt 
wagons  it  would  make  a  procession  of  them  some 
80,000  miles  long.  The  dam  is  a  mile  and  a  half 
long,  a  half  mile  thick  at  the  base,  300  feet  thick 
at  the  water  line,  and  100  feet  thick  at  the  crest. 
Its  height  is  105  feet. 

Yet  in  spite  of  its  vast  dimensions  it  is  the  most 
inconspicuous  object  in  the  landscape.  Grown 
over  with  dense  tropical  vegetation  it  looks  little 
more  conspicuous  than  a  gradual  rise  in  the  sur- 
face of  the  earth.  Passengers  passing  Gatun  on 
the  Panama  Railroad  scarcely  recognize  the  dam 
as  such  when  they  see  it,  so  gradual  are  its  slopes. 
An  excellent  idea  of  the  gentle  incline  of  the  dam 
may  be  had  by  referring  to  the  accompanying 
figure,  which  shows  the  outlines  of  a  cross  section 
of  the  dam. 


GATUN  DAM  35 

The  materials  of  which  it  is  constructed  are 
also  shown  there.  Starting  on  the  upstream  side 
there  is  a  section  made  of  solid  material  from 
Culebra  Cut.  Beyond  this  is  the  upstream  toe  of 
the  dam,  which  is  made  of  the  best  rock  in  the 


<,  A  CROSS-SECTION  OF  THE  GATUN  DAM 

Culebra  Cut.  After  this  comes  the  hydraulic 
fillo  This  material  is  a  mixture  of  sand  and  clay 
which,  when  it  dries  out  thoroughly,  is  compact 
and  absolutely  impervious  to  water.  It  was 
secured  from  the  river  channel  and  pumped  with 
great  20-inch  centrifugal  pumps  into  the  central 
portion  of  the  dam,  where  a  veritable  pond  was 
formed;  the  heavier  materials  settled  to  the  bot- 
tom, forming  layer  after  layer  of  the  core,  while 
the  lighter  particles,  together  with  the  water, 
passed  off  through  drain  pipes.  In  this  way  the 
water  was  not  only  the  hod  carrier  of  the  dam 
construction,  but  the  stone  mason  as  well.  Where 
there  was  the  tiniest  open  space,  even  between  two 
grains  of  sand,  the  water  found  it  and  slipped  in  as 
many  small  particles  as  were  necessary  to  stop  it  up. 
Above  the  hydraulic  fill  on  the  upstream  side  is 
a  layer  of  solid  material,  while  that  part  of  the 
face  of  the  dam  exposed  to  wave  action  is  covered 
with  heavy  rock.  The  same  is  true  of  the  crest. 
On  the  downstream  half  of  the  dam  there  is 
approximately  400  feet  of  hydraulic  fill,  then  400 
feet  of  solid  fill,  then  a  30-foot  toe,  and  then 
ordinary  excavated  material. 


36  THE  PANAMA  CANAL 

The  Chagres  Valley  is  a  wide  one  until  it  reaches 
Gatun.  Here  it  narrows  down  to  a  mile  and  a  half. 
It  is  across  this  valley  that  the  Gatun  Dam  is 
thrown  in  opposition  to  the  seaward  journey  of  the 
Chagres  waters.  At  the  halfway  point  across 
the  valley  there  was  a  little  hill  almost  entirely  of 
solid  rock.  It  happened  to  be  planted  exactly  at 
the  place  the  engineers  needed  it.  Here  they  could 
erect  their  spillway  for  the  control  of  the  water  in 
the  lake  above. 


LAKE: 

PLAN  OF  THE  GATUN  DAM  AND  LOCKS 

The  regulation  of  the  water  level  in  Gatun  Lake 
is  no  small  task,  for  the  Chagres  is  one  of  the 
world's  moodiest  streams.  At  times  it  is  a  peace- 
ful, leisurely  stream  of  some  2  feet  in  depth,  while 
at  other  times  it  becomes  a  wild,  roaring,  torrential 
river  of  magnificent  proportions.  Sometimes  it 
reaches  such  high  stages  that  it  sends  a  million 
gallons  of  water  to  the  sea  between  the  ticks  of  a 
clock. 

In  controlling  the  Chagres,  the  engineers  again 


GATUN  DAM  37 

took  what  on  any  private  work  would  have  been 
regarded  as  absurd  precaution.  In  the  first  place, 
Gatun  Lake  will  be  so  big  that  the  Chagres  can 
break  every  record  it  heretofore  has  set,  both  for 
momentary  high  water  and  for  sustained  high 
water,  and  still,  with  no  water  being  let  out  of  the 
lake,  it  can  continue  to  flow  that  way  for  a  day  and 
a  half  without  disturbing  things  at  all.  It  could 
flow  for  two  days  before  any  serious  damage  could 
be  done.  Thus  the  canal  force  might  be  off  duty 
for  some  45  hours,  with  the  outlet  closed,  before 
any  really  serious  damage  could  be  done  by  the 
rampage  of  the  river. 

But  of  course  no  one  supposes  that  it  would  be 
humanly  possible  that  two  such  contingencies 
as  the  highest  water  ever  known,  and  everybody 
asleep  at  their  posts  for  two  days,  could  happen 
together.  When  the  water  in  the  lake  reached  its 
normal  level  of  87  feet  the  spillway  gates  would  be 
opened,  and,  if  necessary,  it  would  begin  to  dis- 
charge 145,000  feet  of  water  a  second.  This  is 
17,000  feet  more  than  the  record  for  sustained  flow 
heretofore  set  by  the  Chagres.  But  if  it  were 
found  that  even  this  was  inadequate  the  culverts 
in  the  locks  could  be  brought  into  play,  and  with 
them  the  full  discharge  would  be  brought  up  to 
194,000  feet  a  second,  or  57,000  more  than  the 
Chagres  has  ever  brought  down.  But  suppose 
even  this  would  not  suffice  to  take  care  of  the 
floods  of  the  Chagres?  The  spillway  is  so  ar- 
ranged that  as  the  level  of  the  water  in  the  lake 
rises  the  discharging  capacity  increases.  With  the 
spillway  open,  even  if  the  Chagres  were  to  double 
its  record  for  continued  high  water,  it  would  take 


38  THE  PANAMA  CANAL 

many  days  to  bring  the  lake  level  up  to  the  danger 
point  —  92  feet.  When  it  reached  that  height 
the  spillway  would  have  a  capacity  of  £22,000 
feet,  which,  with  the  aid  of  the  big  lock  culverts, 
would  bring  the  total  discharge  up  to  262,000  feet 
a  second  —  only  12,000  cubic  feet  less  than 
double  the  highest  known  flow  of  the  Chagres. 

But  this  is  only  characteristic  of  what  one  sees 
everywhere.  Whether  it  be  in  making  a  spillway 
that  would  accommodate  two  rivers  like  the  Chagres 
instead  of  one,  or  in  building  dams  with  63  pounds 
of  weight  for  every  pound  of  pressure  against  it, 
or  yet  in  building  lock  gates  which  will  bear  several 
times  the  maximum  weight  that  can  ever  be  brought 
against  them,  the  work  at  Panama  was  done  with 
the  intent  to  provide  against  every  possible  con- 
tingency. 

The  spillway  through  which  the  surplus  waters 
of  Gatun  Lake  will  be  let  down  to  the  sea  level, 
is  a  large  semicircular  concrete  dam  structure 
with  the  outside  curve  upstream  and  the  inside 
curve  downstream.  Projecting  above  the  dam 
are  13  piers  and  2  abutments,  which  divide  it  into 
14  openings,  each  of  them  45  feet  wide.  These 
openings  are  closed  by  huge  steel  gates,  45  feet 
wide,  20  feet  high,  and  weighing  42  tons  each. 
They  are  mounted  on  roller  bearings,  suspended 
from  above,  and  are  operated  by  electricity.  They 
work  in  huge  frames  just  as  a  window  slides  up  and 
down  in  its  frame.  Each  gate  is  independent  of 
the  others,  and  the  amount  of  water  permitted  to 
go  over  the  spillway  dam  thus  can  be  regulated 
at  will. 

When  a  huge  volume  of  water  like  a  million 


GATUN  DAM  39 

gallons  a  second  is  to  be  let  down  a  distance  of 
about  60  feet,  it  may  be  imagined  that  unless  some 
means  are  found  to  hold  it  back  and  let  it  descend 
easily,  by  the  time  it  would  reach  the  bottom  it 
would  be  transformed  into  a  thousand  furies  of 
energy.  Therefore,  the  spillway  dam  has  been 
made  semicircular,  with  the  outside  lines  pointing 
up  into  the  lake  and  the  inside  lines  downstream, 
so  that  as  the  water  runs  through  the  openings  it 
will  converge  all  the  currents  and  cause  them  to 
collide  on  the  apron  below.  This  largely  over- 
comes the  madness  of  the  water.  But  still  fur- 
ther to  neutralize  its  force  and  to  make  it  harmless 
as  it  flows  on  its  downward  course,  there  are  two 
rows  of  baffle  piers  on  the  apron  of  the  spillway. 
They  are  about  10  feet  high  and  are  built  of  rein- 
forced concrete,  with  huge  cast-iron  blocks  upon 
their  upstream  faces.  When  the  water  gets 
through  them  it  has  been  tamed  and  robbed  of  all 
its  dangerous  force.  The  spillway  is  so  con- 
structed that  when  the  water  flowing  over  it 
becomes  more  than  6  feet  deep  it  adheres  to  the 
downstream  face  of  the  dam  as  it  glides  down, 
instead  of  rushing  out  and  falling  perpendicularly. 
The  locks  are  situated  against  the  high  hills  at 
the  east  side  of  the  valley,  after  which  comes  the 
east  wing  of  the  dam,  then  the  spillway,  then  the 
west  wing  of  the  dam,  which  terminates  on  the 
side  of  the  low  mountain  that  skirts  the  western 
side  of  the  valley.  With  the  hills  bordering  the 
valley  and  the  dam  across  it,  the  engineers  have 
been  able  to  inclose  a  gigantic  reservoir  which  has 
a  superficial  surface  of  164  square  miles.  It  is 
irregular  in  shape  and  might  remind  one  of  a 


40  THE  PANAMA  CANAL 

pressed  chrysanthemum,  the  flower  representing 
the  lake  and  the  stem  Culebra  Cut.  The  surface 
of  the  water  in  this  lake  is  normally  85  feet  higher 
than  the  surface  of  the  water  seaward  from  Gatun 
and  Miraflores.  The  lake  is  entirely  fresh  water 
supplied  by  the  Chagres  River.  The  accompany- 
ing figure  shows  the  profile  of  the  canal. 


A  PROFILE  SECTION  OF  THE  CANAL 


The  Chagres  River  approaches  the  canal  at 
approximately  right  angles  at  Gamboa,  some  21 
miles  above  Gatun.  The  lake  will  be  so  large 
that  the  river  currents  will  all  be  absorbed,  the 
water  backing  far  up  into  the  Chagres,  the  river 
depositing  its  silt  before  it  reaches  the  canal  proper. 

With  the  currents  thus  checked,  the  Chagres 
will  lose  all  power  to  interfere  with  the  navigation 
of  the  canal,  although  upon  the  bosom  of  its  water 
will  travel  for  a  distance  of  35  miles  all  the  ships 
that  pass  through  the  big  waterway  from  Gatun 
to  Miraflores.  This  fresh  water  will  serve  a  useful 
purpose  besides  carrying  ships  over  the  backbone 
of  the  continent.  Barnacles  lose  their  clinging 
power  in  fresh  water,  and  when  a  ship  passes  up 
through  the  locks  from  sea  level  to  lake  level  and 
from  salt  water  to  fresh,  the  barnacles  that  have 
clung  to  the  sides  and  bottom  of  the  vessel  through 
many  a  thousand  mile  of  "sky-hooting  through 


GATUN  DAM  41 

the  brine"  will  have  their  grip  broken  and  they 
will  drop  off  helplessly  and  fall  to  the  bed  of  the 
lake,  which,  in  the  course  of  years,  will  become 
barnacle-paved.  How  many  times  in  dry-dock 
this  will  save  can  only  be  surmised,  but  the  ship 
that  goes  through  the  canal  regularly  will  not 
have  much  bother  with  barnacles. 

The  engineer  who  worked  out  the  details  of  the 
engineering  examination  of  the  dam  in  1908  was 
Caleb  M.  Saville,  who  had  had  experience  on  some 
of  the  greatest  dams  in  the  world.  In  the  first 
place,  the  whole  foundation  was  honeycombed 
with  test  borings,  and  several  shafts  were  sunk 
so  that  the  engineers  could  go  down  and  see  for 
themselves  exactly  what  was  the  nature  of  the 
material  below.  There  are  some  problems  in  en- 
gineering where  a  decision  is  so  close  between 
safety  and  danger  that  none  but  an  engineer  can 
decide  them.  But  Gatun  Dam  could  speak  for 
itself  and  in  the  layman's  tongue. 

After  investigating  the  site  and  getting  such 
conclusive  evidence  that  the  proverbial  wayfaring 
man  might  understand  it  the  engineers  next 
conducted  a  series  of  experiments  to  determine 
whether  or  not  the  material  of  which  they  pro- 
posed to  build  the  dam  would  be  watertight. 
They  wanted  to  make  sure  whether  enough  water 
would  seep  through  to  carry  any  of  the  dam 
material  along  with  it.  The  maximum  normal 
depth  of  the  water  is  85  feet.  The  material  it 
would  have  to  seep  through  is  nearly  a  hah6  mile 
thick.  In  order  to  determine  how  the  water 
would  behave  they  took  some  3  feet  of  the  material 
and  put  it  in  a  strong  iron  cylinder  with  water 


42  THE  PANAMA  CANAL 

above  it  and  subjected  it  to  a  pressure  equivalent 
to  a  head  of  185  feet  of  water.  Only  an  occasional 
drop  came  through.  If  only  an  occasional  drop 
of  clear  water  gets  through  3  feet  of  material 
under  a  pressure  of  185  feet  of  water,  it  does  not 
require  a  great  engineer  to  determine  that  there 
will  not  be  any  seepage  through  more  than  a 
thousand  feet  of  the  same  material  under  a  head  of 
only  85  feet. 

And  that  is  only  a  sample  of  their  seeking  after 
the  truth.  When  they  had  gone  thus  far  it  was 
then  decided  to  build  a  little  dam  a  few  yards  long 
identical  in  cross  section  with  Gatun  Dam.  It 
was  built  on  the  scale  of  an  inch  to  the  foot,  by 
the  identical  processes  with  which  it  was  intended 
to  build  the  big  dam.  The  result  only  added 
confirmation  to  the  other  experiments.  With  a 
proportionate  head  of  water  against  it,  it  behaved 
exactly  as  they  had  concluded  the  big  dam  would 
when  completed.  Every  engineer  who  has  read 
Saville's  report  pronounces  it  a  masterpiece  of 
engineering  investigation.  It  proved  conclu- 
sively that  the  site  of  the  dam  is  stable,  and  the 
dam  itself  impervious  to  seepage.  The  engineers 
who  visited  the  Isthmus  at  the  time  with  President- 
elect Taft  unanimously  agreed  that  those  investi- 
gations removed  every  trace  of  doubt. 

The  Gatun  Dam  covers  about  288  acres.  The 
material  in  it  weighs  nearly  30,000,000  tons. 
The  pressure  of  the  highest  part  of  the  dam  on  the 
foundations  beneath  amounts  to  many  tons  per 
square  foot.  The  old  bugaboo  about  earthquakes 
throwing  it  down  is  a  danger  that  exists  only  in 
the  minds  of  those  who  see  ghosts.  Some  of  the 


TORO  POINT  BREAKWATER 


GATUN  DAM  43 

biggest  earth  dams  in  the  world  are  located  in 
California.  The  Contra  Costa  Water  Com- 
pany's dam  at  San  Leandro  is  120  feet  high  and 
not  nearly  so  immense  in  its  proportions  as  Gatun 
Dam,  yet  it  weathered  the  San  Francisco  earth- 
quake without  difficulty.  In  Panama  City  there 
is  an  old  flat  arch  that  once  was  a  part  of  a  church. 
It  looks  as  though  one  might  throw  it  down  with 
a  golf  stick,  and  yet  it  has  stood  there  for  several 
centuries.  As  a  matter  of  fact,  Panama  is  out 
of  the  line  of  earthquakes  and  volcanoes,  but  even 
if  shocks  much  worse  than  those  at  San  Fran- 
cisco were  to  come,  there  is  no  reason  to  fear  for 
the  safety  of  the  big  structure. 

The  lack  of  knowledge  of  some  of  those  who  in 
years  past  criticized  the  Gatun  Dam  was  illus- 
trated by  an  amusing  incident  that  occurred  at  a 
senatorial  hearing  on  the  Isthmus.  Philander  C. 
Knox,  afterwards  Secretary  of  State,  was  then  a 
Senator  and  a  member  of  the  committee  which 
went  to  the  Isthmus.  Another  Senator  in  the 
party  had  grave  doubts  about  the  stability  of 
Gatun  Dam,  and  asked  Colonel  Goethals  to  ex- 
plain how  a  dam  could  hold  in  check  such  an 
immense  body  of  water.  Colonel  Goethals,  in 
his  usual  lucid  way,  explained  that  it  was  because 
of  that  well-known  principle  of  physics  that  the 
outward  pressure  of  water  is  determined  by  its 
depth  and  not  by  its  volume  —  that  a  column  of 
water  10  feet  high  and  a  foot  thick  would  have 
just  as  much  outward  pressure  as  a  lake  200  square 
miles  in  extent  and  10  feet  deep.  Still  uncon- 
vinced, the  Senator  pressed  his  examination  fur- 
ther. At  this  juncture  Senator  Knox,  who  is  a 


44  THE  PANAMA  CANAL 

past  master  at  the  art  of  answering  a  question 
with  a  question,  interposed,  and  asked  his  col- 
league: "Senator,  if  your  theory  holds  good, 
how  is  it  that  the  dikes  of  Holland  hold  in  check 
the  Atlantic  Ocean?'7 


CHAPTER  IV 

THE   LOCKS 

SHIPS  that  pass  Panama  way  will  climb  up 
and  down  a  titanic  marine  stairway,  three 
steps  up  into  Gatun  Lake  and  three  steps 
down  again.  These  steps  are  the  12  huge  locks  in 
which  will  center  the  operating  features  of  the 
Isthmian  waterway.  The  building  of  these  locks 
represents  the  greatest  use  of  concrete  ever  under- 
taken. The  amount  used  would  be  sufficient  to 
build  of  concrete  a  row  of  six-room  houses,  reach- 
ing from  New  York  to  Norfolk,  via  Philadelphia, 
Baltimore,  Washington  and  Richmond  —  houses 
enough  to  provide  homes  for  a  population  as  large 
as  that  of  Indianapolis. 

The  total  length  of  the  locks  and  their  acces- 
sories, including  the  guide  walls,  approximates  2 
miles.  The  length  of  the  six  locks  through  which 
a  ship  passes  on  its  voyage  from  one  ocean  to  the 
other  is  a  little  less  than  7,000  feet. 

If  one  who  has  never  seen  a  lock  canal  is  to  get  a 
proper  idea  of  what  part  the  locks  play  in  the 
Panama  Canal,  he  must  follow  attentively  while 
we  make  an  imaginary  journey  through  the  canal 
on  a  ship  that  has  just  come  down  from  New  York. 
Approaching  the  Atlantic  entrance  from  the  north, 
we  pass  the  end  of  the  great  man-made  peninsula, 
jutting  out  11,000  feet  into  the  bay  known  as 

45 


46  THE  PANAMA  CANAL 

Toro  Point  Breakwater.  It  was  built  to  protect 
the  entrance  of  the  canal,  the  harbor,  and  anchor- 
ages from  the  violent  storms  that  sweep  down 
from  the  north  over  that  region.  Omitting  our 
stops  for  the  payment  of  tolls,  the  securing  of 
supplies,  etc.,  we  steam  directly  in  through  a  great 
ditch  500  feet  wide  and  41  feet  deep,  which  simply 
permits  the  ocean  to  come  inland  7  miles  to  Gatun. 
When  we  arrive  there  we  find  that  our  chance  to  go 
farther  is  at  an  end  unless  we  have  some  means  of 
getting  up  into  the  beautiful  lake  whose  surface  is 
85  feet  above  us.  Here  is  where  the  locks  come 
to  our  rescue.  They  will  not  only  give  us  one  lift, 
but  three. 

When  we  approach  the  locks  we  find  a  great 
central  pier  jutting  out  into  the  sea-level  channel. 
If  our  navigating  officers  know  their  duty  they  will 
run  up  alongside  of  this  guide  wall  and  tie  up  to 
it.  If  they  do  not  they  will  run  the  ship's  nose 
into  a  giant  chain,  with  links  made  of  3-inch  iron, 
that  is  guaranteed  to  bring  a  1,000-ton  ship, 
going  at  the  rate  of  5  knots  per  hour,  to  a  dead 
standstill  in  70  feet.  When  we  are  once  safely 
alongside  the  guide  wall,  four  quiet,  but  powerful 
locomotives,  run  by  electricity,  come  out  and  take 
charge  of  our  ship.  Two  of  them  get  before  it  to 
pull  us  forward,  and  two  behind  it  to  hold  us  back. 
Then  the  great  chain,  which  effectively  would 
have  barred  us  from  going  into  the  locks  under  our 
own  steam,  or  from  colliding  with  the  lock  gates, 
is  let  down  and  we  begin  to  move  into  the  first 
lock. 

Starting    at   the    sea-level    channel,    the    first, 
second,  and  third  gates  are  opened  and  our  ship 


THE  LOCKS  47 


towed  into  the  first  lock.  Then  the  second  and 
third  gates  are  closed  again,  and  the  lock  filled 
with  water,  by  gravity,  raising  the  ship  at  the 
rate  of  about  2  feet  a  minute,  although,  if  there  is 
a  great  rush  of  business,  it  may  be  filled  at  the 
rate  of  3  feet  a  minute.  When  the  water  in  this 
lock  reaches  the  level  of  the  water  in  the  lock 
above,  gates  four  and  five  are  opened,  and  we  are 
towed  in.  Then  gate  four  is  closed  again,  and 
water  is  let  into  this  lock  until  it  reaches  the  level 
of  the  third  one.  Gates  six,  seven,  and  eight  are 
next  opened,  and  we  are  towed  into  the  upper  lock. 
Gates  six  and  seven  are  now  closed,  and  the  water 
allowed  to  fill  the  third  lock  until  we  are  up  to  the 
level  of  Gatun  Lake.  Then  gates  nine  and  ten  are 
opened,  the  emergency  dam  is  swung  from  athwart 
the  channel,  if  it  happens  to  be  in  that  position, 
the  fender  chain  like  the  one  encountered  when 
we  entered  the  first  lock,  and  like  the  ones  which 
protect  gates  seven  and  eight,  is  let  down,  the 
towing  engines  turn  us  loose,  and  we  resume  our 
journey,  with  32  miles  of  clear  sailing,  until  we 
reach  Pedro  Miguel.  Here,  by  a  reverse  process, 
we  are  dropped  down  30  J  feet.  Then  we  go  on  to 
Miraflores,  a  mile  and  a  half  away,  where  we  are 
lifted  down  54f  feet  in  two  more  lifts.  This 
brings  us  back  to  sea  level  again,  where  we  meet 
the  waters  of  the  Pacific,  and  steam  out  upon  it 
through  a  channel  500  feet  wide  and  8  miles  long. 
Having  learned  something  of  the  part  the  locks 
play  in  getting  us  across  the  Isthmus,  by  helping 
us  up  out  of  one  ocean  into  Gatun  Lake  and  then 
dropping  down  into  the  other  ocean,  it  will  be  inter- 
esting to  note  something  of  the  mechanism.  A 


\    \ 


48;  THE  PANAMA  CANAL 

very  good  idea  of  how  a  lock  looks  may  be  gathered 
from  the  accompanying  bird's-eye  view  of  the 
model  of  Pedro  Miguel  Lock. 


FROM  A  MODEL  OF  PEDRO  MIGUEL  LOCK 

It  will  be  seen  that  there  are  two  of  them  side 
by  side  • —  twin  locks,  they  are  called,  making 
them  like  a  double-track  railway.  The  lock  on  the 
right  is  nearly  filled  for  an  upward  passage.  The 
ship  will  be  seen  in  it,  held  in  position  by  the  four 
towing  engines,  which  appear  only  as  tiny  specks 
hitched  to  hawsers  from  the  stem  and  stern. 
Behind  the  ship  are  the  downstream  gates.  They 
were  first  opened  to  admit  the  ship,  and  then  closed 
to  impound  the  water  that  flows  up  through  the 
bottom  of  the  lock.  Ahead  are  the  upstream 
gates,  closed  also  until  the  water  in  the  lock 
is  brought  up  to  the  level  of  the  water  in  the 
lake.  Then  the  gates  will  be  opened,  the  big 


THE  LOCKS  4£ 

chain  fender  will  be  dropped  down,  and  the  ship 
will  be  towed  out  into  the  lake  and  turned  loose. 
On  the  side  wall  of  the  right  lock  there  is  a  big 
bridge  set  on  a  pivot  so  that  it  can  be  swung 
around  across  the  lock  and  girders  let  down  from 
it  to  serve  as  a  foundation  upon  which  to  lay  a 
steel  dam  if  anything  happens  to  the  locks  or 
gates.  On  the  other  lock  the  bridge  has  been 
swung  into  position,  and  the  steel  girders  let 
down.  Great  steel  sheets  will  be  let  down  on  live 
roller  bearings  on  these  girders,  and  when  all  are 
in  place  they  will  form  a  watertight  dam  of  steel. 
Between  this  bridge  and  the  reader  is  a  huge  float- 
ing tank  of  steel,  which  may  be  used  to  dam  all  the 
water  out  of  the  locks  when  that  is  desired. 

Referring  to  the  next  figure  we  see  a  cross  sec- 
tion of  the  twin  locks.  The  side  walls  are  from 
45  to  50  feet  thick  at  the  floor.  At  a  point  24| 
feet  above  the  floor  they  begin  to  narrow  by  a 
series  of  6-foot  steps  until  they  are  8  feet  wide  at 
the  top.  The  middle  wall  is  60  feet  wide  all  the 
way  up,  although  at  a  point  42J  feet  above  the 
lock  floor  room  is  made  for  a  filling  of  earth  and 
for  a  three-story  tunnel,  the  top  story  being  used 
as  a  passageway  for  the  operators,  the  second 
story  as  a  conduit  for  electric  wires,  and  the  lower 
story  as  a  drainage  system. 


A  CROSS-SECTION  OF  LOCKS,  GIVING  AN  IDEA  OF  THEIR  SIZE 


50  THE  PANAMA  CANAL 

In  this  figure  D  and  G  are  the  big  18-foot  cul- 
verts through  which  water  is  admitted  from  the 
lake  to  the  locks.  Each  of  these  three  big  culverts, 
which  are  nearly  7,000  feet  long,  is  large  enough 
to  accommodate  a  modern  express  train,  and  is 
about  the  size  of  the  Pennsylvania  tubes  under  the 
Hudson  and  East  Rivers.  H  represents  the  cul- 
verts extending  across  the  lock  from  the  big  ones. 
Each  of  them  is  big  enough  to  accommodate  a  two- 
horse  wagon,  and  there  are  14  in  each  lock. 
Every  alternate  one  leads  from  the  side  wall  cul- 
vert and  the  others  from  the  center  wall  culvert. 
F  represents  the  wells  that  lead  up  through  the 
floor  into  the  lock,  each  larger  in  diameter  than 
a  sugar  barrel  in  girth.  There  are  five  wells 
on  each  cross  culvert,  or  70  in  the  floor  of  each 
lock. 

The  flow  of  the  water  into  the  locks  and  out 
again  is  controlled  by  great  valves.  The  ones 
which  control  the  great  wall  tunnels  or  culverts 
are  called  Stoney  Gate  valves,  and  operate  some- 
thing like  giant  windows  in  frames.  They  are 
mounted  on  roller  bearings  to  make  them  work 
without  friction.  The  others  are  ordinary  cylin- 
drical valves,  but,  having  to  close  a  culvert  large 
enough  to  permit  a  two-horse  team  to  be  driven 
through  it,  they  must  be  of  great  size.  When  a 
ship  is  passing  from  Gatun  Lake  down  to  the 
Atlantic  Ocean,  the  water  in  the  upper  lock  is 
brought  up  to  the  level  of  that  in  the  lake,  being 
admitted  through  the  big  wall  culverts,  whence  it 
passes  out  through  the  14  cross  culverts  and  up 
into  the  locks  through  the  70  wells  in  the  floor. 
Then  the  ship  is  towed  in,  the  gates  are  shut  behind 


CONCRETE  MIXERS,  GATUN 


A  CENTER  AY  ALL  CULVERT,  GATUN  LOCKS 


THE  LOCKS  51 

it,  the  valves  are  closed  against  the  water  in  the 
lake,  the  ones  permitting  the  escape  of  this  water 
into  the  lock  below  are  opened,  and  it  continues 
to  flow  out  of  the  upper  lock  into  the  lower  one 
until  the  water  in  the  two  has  the  same  level. 
Then  the  gates  between  the  two  locks  are  opened, 
the  ship  is  towed  into  the  second  one  and  the 
operation  is  repeated  for  the  last  lock  in  the  same 
way. 

The  gates  of  the  locks  are  an  interesting  feature. 
Their  total  weight  is  about  58,000  tons.  There 
are  46  of  them,  each  having  two  leaves.  Their 
weight  varies  from  300  to  600  tons  per  leaf, 
dependent  upon  the  varying  height  of  the  dif- 
ferent gates.  The  lowest  ones  are  47  feet  high 
and  the  highest  ones  82  feet,  their  height  depend- 
ing upon  the  place  where  they  are  used.  Some 
of  these  are  known  as  intermediate  gates,  and  are 
used  for  short  ships,  when  it  is  desired  to  economize 
on  both  water  and  time.  They  divide  each  lock 
chamber  into  two  smaller  chambers  of  350  and 
550  feet,  respectively.  Perhaps  90  per  cent  of 
all  the  ships  that  pass  Panama  will  not  need  to 
use  the  full  length  lock  —  1,000  feet.  Duplicate 
gates  will  always  be  kept  on  the  ground  as  a  pre- 
caution against  accident.  Each  leaf  is  65  feet 
wide  and  7  feet  thick.  The  heaviest  single  piece 
of  steel  in  each  one  of  them  is  the  lower  sill,  weigh- 
ing 18  tons.  It  requires  6,000,000  rivets  to  put 
them  together.  In  the  lower  part  of  each  gate  is  a 
huge  tank.  When  it  is  desired  that  the  gate  shall 
have  buoyancy,  as  when  operating  it,  this  tank 
will  be  filled  with  air.  When  closed  it  is  filled  with 
water.  The  gates  are  opened  and  closed  by  a 


52^  THE  PANAMA  CANAL 

huge  arm,  or  strut,  one  end  of  which  is  connected 
to  the  gate  and  the  other  to  a  huge  wheel  in  the 
manner  of  the  connecting  rod  to  the  driver  of  a 
locomotive.  Leakage  through  the  space  between 
the  gate  and  the  miter  sill  on  the  floor  of  the  lock 
is  prevented  by  a  seal  which  consists  of  heavy 
timbers  with  flaps  of  rubber  4  inches  wide  and 
half  an  inch  thick.  A  special  sealing  device  brings 
the  edges  of  the  two  leaves  of  a  gate  together  and 
holds  them  firmly  while  the  gates  are  closed. 

Remembering  that  these  gates  are  nothing  more 
than  Brobdingnagian  double  doors  '  which  close 
in  the  shape  of  a  flattened  V,  it  follows  that  they 
must  have  hinges.  And  these  hinges  are  worth 
going  miles  to  see.  That  part  which  fastens  to  the 
wall  of  the  lock  weighs  36,752  pounds  in  the  case 
of  the  operating  gates,  and  38,476  pounds  in  the 
protection  gates.  These  latter  are  placed  in  pairs 
with  the  operating  gates  at  all  danger  points  — 
so  that  if  one  set  of  gates  are  rammed  down,  an- 
other pair  will  still  be  in  position.  The  part  of  the 
hinge  attached  to  the  gate  was  made  according  to 
specifications  which  required  that  it  should  stand 
a  strain  of  40,000  pounds  before  stretching  at  all, 
and  70,000  pounds  before  breaking.  Put  into  a 
huge  testing  machine,  it  actually  stood  a  strain  of 
3,300,000  pounds  before  breaking  —  seven  times 
as  great  as  any  stress  it  will  ever  be  called  upon  to 
bear.  The  gates  are  all  painted  a  lead  gray,  to 
match  the  ships  of  the  American  Navy.  Those 
which  come  into  contact  with  sea  water  will  be 
treated  with  a  barnacle-proof  preparation. 

Now  that  we  have  described  the  locks,  we  may 
go  back  and  see  them  in  course  of  construction. 


THE  LOCKS  53 

The  first  task  was  getting  the  lock  building  plant 
designed  and  built.  At  Gatun  the  plant  con- 
sisted of  a  series  of  immense  cableways,  an  electric 
railroad,  and  enormous  concrete  mixers.  Great 
towers  were  erected  on  either  side  of  the  area 
excavated  for  the  locks,  with  giant  cables  connect- 
ing them.  These  towers  were  85  feet  high,  and 
were  mounted  on  tracks  like  steam  shovels,  so 
that  they  could  be  moved  forward  as  the  work  pro- 
gressed. The  cables  connecting  them  were  of 
2 \- inch  lock  steel  wire  covered  with  interlocking 
strands.  They  were  guaranteed  to  carry  6  tons 
at  a  trip,  20  trips  an  hour,  and  to  carry  60,000 
loads  before  giving  way.  They  actually  did  better 
than  the  specifications  called  for  as  far  as  endur- 
ance was  concerned. 

The  sand  for  making  the  concrete  for  Gatun 
came  from  Nombre  de  Dios  (Spanish  for  Name  of 
God),  and  the  gravel  from  Porto  Bello.  The  sand 
and  gravel  were  towed  in  great  barges,  first  through 
the  old  French  Canal,  and  later  through  the 
Atlantic  entrance  of  the  present  canal.  Great 
clamshell  buckets  on  the  Lidgerwood  cableways 
would  swoop  down  upon  the  barges,  get  2  cubic 
yards  of  material  at  a  mouthful,  lift  it  up  to  the 
cable,  carry  it  across  to  the  storage  piles  and  there 
dump  it.  In  this  way  more  than  2,000,000 
wagon  loads  of  sand  and  gravel  were  handled. 

A  special  equipment  was  required  to  haul  the 
sand,  gravel,  and  cement  from  the  storage  piles 
to  the  concrete  mixers.  There  were  two  circular 
railroads  of  24-inch  gauge,  carrying  little  electric 
cars  that  ran  without  motormen.  Each  car  was 
stopped,  started,  or  reversed  by  a  switch  attached 


54  THE  PANAMA  CANAL 

to  the  car.  Their  speed  never  varied  more  than 
10  per  cent  whether  they  were  going  empty  or 
loaded,  up  hill  or  down.  When  a  car  was  going 
down  hill  its  motor  was  reversed  into  a  generator 
so  that  it  helped  make  electricity  to  pull  some 
other  car  up  the  hill.  The  cars  ran  into  a  little 
tunnel,  where  each  was  given  its  proper  load  of 
one  part  cement,  three  parts  sand,  and  six  parts 
gravel  —  2  cubic  yards,  in  all  —  and  was  then 
hurried  on  to  the  big  concrete  mixers.  These  were 
so  arranged  in  a  series  that  it  was  not  necessary 
to  stop  them  to  receive  the  sand,  gravel,  and 
cement,  or  to  dump  out  the  concrete. 

On  the  emptying  sides  of  the  concrete  mixers 
there  were  other  little  electric  railway  tracks. 
Here  there  were  little  trains  of  a  motor  and  two 
cars  each,  with  a  motorman.  The  train,  with  two 
big  2-cubic-yard  buckets,  drew  up  alongside  two 
concrete  mixers.  Without  stopping  their  endless 
revolutions  the  mixers  tilted  and  poured  out  their 
contents  into  the  two  buckets,  2  yards  in  each. 
Then  the  little  train  hurried  away,  stopping  under 
a  great  cable.  Across  from  above  the  lock  walls 
came  two  empty  buckets,  carried  on  pulleys 
on  the  cableway.  When  they  reached  a  point  over 
the  train  they  descended  and  were  set  on  the  cars, 
behind  the  full  buckets.  The  full  buckets  were 
then  attached  to  the  lifting  hooks,  and  were  car- 
ried up  to  the  cable  and  then  across  to  the  lock 
walls,  where  they  were  dumped  and  the  concrete 
spread  out  by  a  force  of  men.  Meanwhile  the 
train  hustled  off  with  its  two  empty  buckets, 
ready  to  be  loaded  again. 

On  the  Pacific  side  the  concrete  handling  plant 


THE  LOCKS     %  55 

was  somewhat  different.  Instead  of  cableways 
there  were  great  cantilever  cranes  built  of  struc- 
tural steel.  Some  of  these  were  in  tEe  shape  of  a 
giant  T,  while  others  looked  like  two  T's  fastened 
together.  Here  the  clamshell  dippers  were  run 
out  on  the  arms  of  the  cranes  to  the  storage  piles, 
where  they  picked  up  their  loads  of  material. 
This  was  put  in  hoppers  large  enough  to  store 
material  for  10  cubic  yards.  The  sand  and  stone 
then  passed  through  measuring  hoppers  and  to  the 
mixers  with  cement  and  water  added.  After  it 
was  mixed  it  was  dumped  into  big  buckets  on  little 
cars  drawn  by  baby  steam  locomotives,  which 
looked  like  overgrown  toy  engines.  These  little 
fellows  reminded  one  of  a  lot  of  busy  bees  as  they 
dashed  about  here  and  there  with  their  loads  of 
concrete,  choo-chooing  as  majestically  as  the  great 
dirt  train  engines  which  passed  back  and  forth 
hard  by.  The  cranes  would  take  their  filled 
buckets  and  leave  empty  ones  in  exchange,  and 
this  was  kept  up  day  in  and  day  out  until  the  locks 
were  completed.  When  the  plant  was  removed 
from  Pedro  Miguel  to  Miraflores,  a  large  part  of 
the  concrete  was  handled  directly  from  the  mixers 
to  the  walls  by  the  cranes  without  the  intermediary 
locomotive  service. 

The  cost  of  the  construction  of  the  locks  was 
estimated  in  1908  at  upward  of  $57,000,000.  But 
economy  in  the  handling  of  the  material  and 
efficiency  on  the  part  of  the  lock  builders  cut  the 
actual  cost  far  below  that  figure.  On  the  Atlantic 
side  about  a  dollar  was  saved  on  every  yard  of 
concrete  laid  —  about  $2,000,000.  On  the  Pacific 
side  more  than  twice  as  much  was  saved. 


56  THE  PANAMA  CANAL 

Before  the  locks  could  be  built  it  became  nec- 
essary to  excavate  down  to  bed  rock.  This  re- 
quired the  removal  of  nearly  5,000,000  cubic  yards 
of  material  at  Gatun.  Then  extensive  tests 
were  made  to  make  certain  that  the  floor  of 
the  locks  could  be  anchored  safely  to  the  rock. 
These  tests  demonstrated  that  by  using  the  old 
steel  rails  that  were  left  on  the  Isthmus  by  the 
French,  the  concrete  and  rock  could  be  tied  to- 
gether so  firmly  as  to  defy  the  ravages  of  water 
and  time.  A  huge  apron  of  concrete  was  built 
out  into  Gatun  Lake  from  the  upper  locks  at  that 
place,  effectively  preventing  any  water  from 
getting  between,  the,  rggks  and  the  concrete  lying 
upon  them. 


CHAPTER  V 

THE   LOCK  MACHINERY 

ONE  of  the  problems  that  had  to  be  solved 
before  the  Panama  Canal  could  be  pre- 
sented to  the  American  people  as  a  finished 
waterway,  was  that  of  equipping  it  with  adequate 
and  dependable  machinery  for  its  operation. 
Panama  canals  are  not  built  every  year,  so  it  was 
not  a  matter  of  ordering  equipment  from  stock; 
everything  had  to  be  invented  and  designed  for 
the  particular  requirement  it  was  necessary  to 
meet.  And  the  first  and  foremost  requirement  was 
safety.  When  we  look  over  the  canal  machinery 
we  see  that  word  "safety"  written  in  every  bolt, 
in  every  wheel,  in  every  casting,  in  every  machine. 
We  see  it  in  the  devices  designed  for  protection 
and  in  those  designed  for  operation  as  well.  We 
see  it  in  the  giant  chain  that  will  stop  a  vessel 
before  it  can  ram  a  gate;  we  see  it  in  the  great 
cantilever  pivot  bridges  that  support  the  emer- 
gency dams;  we  see  it  in  the  double  lock  gates  at 
all  exposed  points ;  we  see  it  in  the  electric  towing 
apparatus,  in  the  limit  switches  that  will  auto- 
matically stop  a  machine  when  the  operator  is  not 
attending  to  his  business,  in  the  friction  clutches 
that  will  slip  before  the  breaking  point  is  reached. 
Safety,  safety,  safety,  the  word  is  written  every- 
where. 

67 


58  THE  PANAMA  CANAL 

The  first  thing  a  ship  encounters  when  it  ap- 
proaches the  locks  is  the  giant  chain  stretched 
across  its  path.  That  chain  is  made  of  links  of 
3  inches  in  diameter.  When  in  normal  position, 
it  is  stretched  across  the  locks,  and  the  vessel 
which  does  not  stop  as  soon  as  it  should  will  ram 
its  nose  into  the  chain.  There  is  a  hydraulic 
paying-out  arrangement  at  both  ends  of  the  chain, 
and  when  the  pressure  against  it  reaches  a  hundred 
gross  tons  the  chain  will  begin  to  pay  out  and 
gradually  bring  the  offending  vessel  to  a  stop. 
After  a  ship  strikes  the  chain  its  momentum  will 
be  gradually  reduced,  its  energy  being  absorbed 
by  the  chain  mechanism.  While  the  pressure  at 
which  the  chain  will  begin  to  yield  is  fixed  at  100 
gross  tons,  the  pressure  required  to  break  it  is 
262  tons.  Thus  the  actual  stress  it  can  bear  is 
two  and  a  half  times  what  it  will  be  called  upon 
to  meet.  The  mechanism  by  which  the  paying- 
out  of  the  chain  is  accomplished  is  exceedingly 
ingenious.  The  principle  is  practically  the  re- 
verse of  that  of  a  hydraulic  jack.  The  two  ends 
of  the  428-foot  chain  are  attached  to  big  plungers 
in  the  two  walls  of  the  locks.  These  plungers 
fit  in  large  cylinders,  which  contain  broad  surfaces 
of  water.  They  are  connected  with  very  small 
openings,  which  are  kept  closed  until  a  pressure  of 
750  pounds  to  the  square  inch  is  exerted  against 
them.  By  means  of  a  resistance  valve  these  open- 
ings are  then  made  available,  the  water  shooting 
out  as  through  a  nozzle  under  high  pressure.  This 
permits  the  chain  plunger  to  rise  gradually,  while 
keeping  the  tension  at  750  pounds  to  the  inch, 
and  the  paying-out  of  the  chain  proceeds  accord- 


_THE  LOCK  MACHINERY  59 

ingly.  Of  course  not  all  ships  will  strike  the  chain 
at  the  same  speed,  and  in  some  cases  the  paying- 
out  process  will  have  to  be  more  rapid  than  in 
others.  This  is  provided  for  by  the  automatic 
enlargement  of  the  hole  through  which  the  water 
is  discharged,  the  size  of  the  hole  again  becoming 
smaller  as  the  tension  of  the  chain  decreases.  This 
chain  fender  will  stop  the  Olympic  with  full  load, 
when  going  a  mile  and  a  half  an  hour,  bringing 
it  to  a  dead  standstill  within  70  feet,  or  it  will  stop 
an  ordinary  10,000-ton  ship  in  the  same  distance 
even  if  it  have  a  speed  of  5  miles.  The  function 
of  the  resistance  valve  is  to  prevent  the  chain  from 
beginning  to  pay  out  until  the  stress  against  it 
goes  up  to  100  tons,  and  to  regulate  the  paying-out 
so  as  to  keep  it  constant  at  that  point,  so  long  as 
there  is  necessity  for  paying-out.  Any  pressure 
of  less  than  a  hundred  tons  will  not  put  the  paying- 
out  mechanism  into  operation. 

When  a  ship  is  to  be  put  through  the  locks  the 
chain  will  be  let  down  into  great  grooves  in  the 
floor  of  the  lock.  There  is  a  fixed  plunger  operat- 
ing within  a  cylinder,  which,  in  turn,  operates 
within  another  cylinder,  the  resulting  movement, 
by  a  system  of  pulleys,  being  made  to  pay  out  or 
pull  in  4  feet  of  chain  for  every  foot  the  plunger 
travels.  The  chain  must  be  raised  or  lowered  in 
one  minute,  and  always  will  have  to  be  lowered 
to  permit  the  passage  of  a  ship.  The  fender 
machines  are  situated  in  pits  in  the  lock  walls. 
These  pits  are  likely  to  get  filled  with  water  from 
drippings,  leakages,  wave  action,  and  drainage, 
so  they  are  protected  with  automatic  pumps. 
Float  valves  are  lifted  when  the  water  rises  in  the 


60  THE  PANAMA  CANAL 

pits.  This  automatically  moves  the  switch  con- 
trolling an  electric  motor,  which  starts  a  pump  to 
working  whenever  the  water  gets  within  1  inch  of 
the  top  of  the  sump  beneath  the  floor  of  the  pit. 
Twenty-four  of  these  chain  fenders  are  required 
for  the  protection  of  the  locks,  and  each  requires 
two  such  tension  machines. 

No  ship  will  be  allowed  to  go  through  the  canal 
except  under  the  control  of  a  canal  pilot.  He  will 
certainly  bring  it  to  a  stop  at  the  approach  wall. 
But  if  he  does  not,  there  is  the  chain  fender. 
There  is  not  a  chance  in  a  thousand  for  a  collision 
with  it,  and  not  a  chance  in  a  hundred  thousand 
that  the  ship  will  not  be  stopped  when  there  is 
such  a  collision. 

But  if  the  pilot  should  fail  to  stop  the  ship,  and 
it  should  collide  with  the  fender  chain,  and  then 
if  the  fender  chain  should  fail  to  stop  it,  there  would 
be  the  double  gates  at  the  head  of  the  lock.  There 
is  not  one  chance  in  a  hundred  that  a  ship,  checked 
as  it  inevitably  would  be  by  the  fender  chain, 
could  ram  down  the  first,  or  safety  gate.  But  if 
it  did,  there  would  still  be  another  set  of  gates 
some  70  feet  away.  The  chances  here  might  be 
one  in  a  hundred  of  the  second  set  being  rammed 
down.  From  all  this  it  will  be  seen  that  the 
chances  of  the  second  pair  of  gates  being  rammed 
is  so  remote  as  to  be  almost  without  the  realm  of 
possibility.  But  suppose  all  these  precautions 
should  fail,  and  suddenly  the  way  should  be  opened 
for  the  water  of  Gatun  Lake  to  rush  through  the 
locks  at  the  destructive  speed  of  20  miles  an  hour? 
Even  that  day  has  been  provided  against  by  the 
construction  of  the  big  emergency  dams.  The 


THE  LOCK  MACHINERY 

emergency  dams,  like  the  fender  chains,  are  de- 
signed only  for  protection,  and  have  no  other  use 
in  the  operation  of  the  locks.  There  will  be  six 
of  these  dams,  one  across  each  of  the  head  locks 
at  Gatun,  Pedro  Miguel,  and  Miraflores. 

These  emergency  dams  will  be  mounted  on 
pivots  on  the  side  walls  of  the  locks  about  200  feet 
above  the  upper  gates.  When  not  in  use  they 
will  rest  on  the  side  wall  and  parallel  with  it. 
When  in  use  they  will  be  swung  across  the  locks, 
by  electric  machinery  or  by  hand,  and  there  rigidly 
wedged  in.  It  will  require  two  minutes  to  get  them 
in  position  by  electricity  and  30  minutes  by  hand. 
There  is  a  motor  for  driving  the  wedges  which  will 
hold  the  dam  securely  in  position,  and  limit  switches 
to  prevent  the  dams  being  moved  too  far. 

When  a  bridge  is  put  into  position  across  the 
lock,  a  series  of  wicket  girders  which  are  attached 
to  the  upstream  side  of  the  floor  of  the  bridge  are 
let  down  into  the  water,  the  connection  between 
the  bridge  and  one  end  of  each  girder  being  made 
by  an  elbow  joint.  The  other  end  goes  down  into 
the  water,  its  motion  being  controlled  by  a  cable 
attached  some  distance  from  the  free  end  of  the 
girder  and  paid  out  or  drawn  in  over  an  electrically 
operated  drum.  This  free  end  passes  down  until 
it  engages  a  big  iron  casting  embedded  in  the  con- 
crete of  the  lock  floor.  This  makes  a  sort  of  in- 
clined railway  at  an  angle  of  about  30  degrees 
from  the  perpendicular,  over  which  huge  steel 
plates  are  let  down  into  the  water.  There  are 
six  of  these  girders,  and  they  are  all  made  of  the 
finest  nickel  steel.  When  they  are  all  in  position, 
a  row  of  six  plates  are  let  down,  and  they  make  the 


62  THE  PANAMA  CANAL 

stream  going  through  the  locks  several  feet  shal- 
lower. Then  another  row  of  plates  is  let  down  on 
these,  and  the  stream  becomes  that  much  shal- 
lower. Another  row  of  plates  is  added,  and  then 
another,  until  there  is  a  solid  sheet  of  steel  plates 
resting  on  the  six  girders,  and  they  make  a  com- 
plete steel  dam  which  effectively  arrests  the  mad 
impulse  of  the  water  in  Gatun  Lake  to  rush  down 
into  the  sea.  The  plates  are  moved  up  and  down 
by  electrical  machinery,  and  are  mounted  on 
roller-bearing  wheels,  so  that  the  tremendous 
friction  caused  by  their  being  pressed  against  the 
girders  by  the  great  force  of  the  water  may  be 
overcome.  That  the  emergency  dams  will  be 
effective  is  shown  by  the  experience  at  the  "Soo" 
locks,  on  the  canal  connecting  Lakes  Superior  and 
Huron.  There,  a  vessel  operating  under  its  own 
power,  rammed  a  lock  gate.  Although  the  emer- 
gency dam  had  grown  so  rusty  by  disuse  that  it 
could  be  operated  only  by  hand,  it  was  swung 
across  the  lock  and  effectively  fulfilled  its  mission 
of  checking  the  maddened  flow  of  the  water. 

Another  protective  device  for  the  locks  is  the 
big  caisson  gates  that  will  be  floated  across  the 
head  and  tail  bays  when  it  is  desired  to  remove  all 
the  water  from  the  locks  for  the  purpose  of  per- 
mitting the  lower  guard  gates  to  be  examined, 
cleaned,  painted,  or  repaired,  and  for  allowing  the 
sills  of  the  emergency  dams  to  be  examined  in  the 
dry.  The  caisson  gates  are  112J  feet  long,  36 
feet  beam,  and  have  a  light  draft  of  32  feet  and  a 
heavy  draft  of  61  feet.  When  one  is  floated  into 
position  to  close  the  lock,  water  will  be  admitted 
to  make  it  sink  to  the  proper  depth.  Then  its 


THE  LOCK  MACHINERY  63 

large  centrifugal  pumps,  driven  by  electric  motors, 
will  pump  the  water  out  of  the  lock.  When  the 
work  on  the  lock  is  completed  these  pumps  will 
pump  the  water  out  of  the  caisson  itself  until  it 
becomes  buoyant  enough  to  resume  its  light  draft, 
after  which  it  will  be  floated  away. 

The  machinery  for  opening  and  closing  the  lock 
gates  called  for  unusual  care  in  its  designing.  The 
existing  types  of  gate-operating  machinery  were 
all  studied,  and  it  was  found  that  none  of  them 
could  be  depended  on  to  prove  satisfactory,  so 
special  machines  had  to  be  designed. 

A  great  wheel,  resembling  a  drive  wheel  of  a 
locomotive,  except  that  a  little  over  half  of  the 
rim  is  cog-geared,  is  mounted  in  a  horizontal 
position  on  a  big  plate,  planted  firmly  in  the  con- 
crete of  the  wall  and  bolted  there  with  huge  bolts 
11  feet  long  and  £j  inches  in  diameter.  This 
plate  weighs  over  13,000  pounds,  and  the  wheel, 
cast  in  two  pieces,  weighs  34,000  pounds.  As 
the  weight  of  the  rim  of  the  wheel  on  the  eight 
spokes  probably  would  tax  their  strength  too  much 
when  the  wheel  is  under  stress,  this  is  obviated  by 
four  bearing  wheels,  perpendicular  to  the  big 
wheel,  which  support  the  rim.  Between  the 
crank  pin  and  the  point  of  attachment  on  the  gate 
leaf  there  is  a  long  arm,  or  strut,  designed  to  bear 
an  operating  strain  of  nearly  a  hundred  tons. 
The  wheel  will  be  revolved  by  a  motor  geared  to 
the  cogged  part  of  the  rim. 

An  ingenious  arrangement  of  electric  switches 
is  that  used  to  protect  the  gate-moving  machines 
from  harm.  The  big  connecting  rod  between  the 
master  wheel  and  the  gate  leaf  is  attached  to  the 


64 


THE  PANAMA  CANAL 


gate  leaf  by  a  nest  of  springs  capable  of  sustaining 
a  pressure  of  184,000  pounds,  in  addition  to  the 
fixed  pressure  of  60,000  pounds.  Should  any 
obstruction  interfere  with  the  closing  of  the  gate 
and  threaten  a  dangerous  pressure  on  the  con- 
necting rod,  the  springs,  as  soon  as  they  reach 
their  full  compression,  establish  an  electrical 
contact  and  thus  stop  the  motor.  Likewise, 
should  any  obstruction  come  against  the  gate  as 
the  connecting  rod  is  pulling  it  open,  the  springs 
again  permit  the  establishment  of  an  electrical 
contact  and  stop  the  motor.  All  of  these  pre- 
cautions are  entirely  independent  of  and  supple- 
mental to  the  limit  switches,  which  cut  off. the 
power  from  the  gate-moving  machine  should  the 
strain  reach  the  danger  line.  These  big  machines 
move  the  huge  gate  leaves  without  the  slightest 
noise  or  vibration.  Such  a  machine  is  required 
for  each  of  the  92  leaves  used  in  the  46  gates  with 
which  the  locks  are  equipped.  The  operator  can 
open  or  close  one  of  these  big  gates  in  two  minutes. 


Wfrt 


ONE  OF  THE  92  GATE-LEAF  MASTER  WHEELS 


THE  LOCK  MACHINERY  65 

The  control  of  the  water  in  the  culverts  of  the 
locks  is  taken  care  of  by  an  ingeniously  designed 
series  of  valves.  The  big  wall  culverts,  18  feet 
in  diameter,  are  divided  into  two  sections  at  the 
points  where  the  valves  are  installed,  by  the  con- 
struction of  a  perpendicular  pier.  This  makes  two 
openings  8  by  18  feet.  The  big  gates  of  steel  are 
placed  in  frames  to  close  these  openings  just  as 
a  window  sash  is  placed  in  its  frame.  They  are 
mounted  on  roller  bearings,  so  as  to  overcome  the 
friction  caused  by  the  pressure  of  water  against 
the  valve  gates.  They  must  be  mounted  so  that 
there  is  not  more  than  a  fourth  of  an  inch  play  in 
any  direction.  The  big  wall  culvert  gates  will 
weigh  about  10  tons  each,  and  must  be  capable 
of  operating  under  a  head  of  more  than  60  feet  of 
water.  They  will  be  raised  and  lowered  by 
electricity. 

The  electric  locomotives  which  will  be  used  to 
tow  ships  through  the  locks  are  one  of  the  inter- 
esting features  of  the  equipment.  There  will  be 
40  of  them  on  the  3  sets  of  locks.  The  average 
ship  will  require  four  of  them,  two  at  the  bow  and 
two  at  the  stern,  to  draw  it  through  the  locks. 
They  will  run  on  tracks  on  the  lock  walls,  and  will 
have  two  sets  of  wheels.  One  set  will  be  cogged, 
and  will  be  used  when  the  locomotives  are  engaged 
in  towing.  The  other  set  will  be  pressed  into 
service  when  they  are  running  light.  When  a 
vessel  is  in  one  lock  waiting  for  the  water  to  be 
equalized  with  that  in  the  next  one  and  the  gates 
opened  to  permit  passage,  the  forward  locomotives 
will  run  free  up  the  incline  to  the  lock  wall  above, 
paying  out  hawser  as  they  go.  When  they  get 


66  THE  PANAMA  CANAL 

to  the^next  higher  level  they  are  ready  to  exert 
their  maximum  pull.  Each  locomotive  consists 
of  three  parts:  two  motors  hitched  together,  and 
the  tandem  may  be  operated  from  either  end.  The 
third  part  is  a  big  winding  drum  around  which 
the  great  hawsers  are  wound.  This  towing  wind- 
lass permits  the  line  to  be  paid  out  or  pulled  in  and 
the  distance  between  the  ship  and  the  locomotives 
varied  at  will.  The  locomotive  may  thus  exert 
its  pull  or  relax  it  while  standing  still  on  the  track, 
a  provision  especially  valuable  in  bringing  ships 
to  rest.  In  the  main,  however,  the  pull  of  the 
locomotive  is  exercised  by  its  running  on  the  semi- 
suppressed  rack  track  anchored  in  the  coping  of 
the  lock  walls.  Each  flight  of  locks  will  be  pro- 
vided with  two  towing  tracks,  one  on  the  side  and 
one  on  the  center  wall.  Each  wall  will  be  equipped 
with  a  return  track  of  ordinary  rails,  so  that  when 
a  set  of  locomotives  has  finished  towing  a  ship 
through  the  locks  they  can  be  switched  over  from 
these  tracks  and  hustled  back  for  another  job. 
When  they  reach  the  inclines  from  one  lock  to  the 
next  above  the  rack  track  will  be  pressed  into 
service  again  until  they  reach  the  next  level  stretch. 
Here  again  one  meets  the  familiar  safeguard 
against  accident.  Some  engineer  of  one  of  these 
towing  locomotives  might  sometime  overload  it, 
so  the  power  of  doing  so  has  been  taken  out  of  his 
hands.  On  the  windlass  or  drum  that  holds  the 
towing  hawser  there  is  a  friction  coupling.  If  the 
engineer  should  attempt  to  overload  his  engine, 
or  if  for  any  other  reason  there  should  suddenly 
come  upon  the  locomotive  a  greater  strain  than  it 
could  bear,  or  upon  the  track,  or  upon  the  hawser, 


THE  LOCK  MACHINERY 


67 


the  friction  clutch  would  let  loose  at  its  appointed 
tension  of  25,000  pounds,  and  all  danger  would  be 
averted. 

When  the  locomotives  are  towing  a  ship  from 
the  walls  it  is  natural  that  there  should  be  a  side 
pull  on  the  hawser.  This  is  overcome  by  wheels 
that  run  against  the  side  of  the  track  and  are 
mounted  horizontally.  All  of  the  towing  tracks 
extend  out  on  the  approach  walls  of  the  locks  so 
that  the  locomotives  can  get  out  far  enough  to  take 
charge  of  a  ship  before  it  gets  close  enough  to  do 
the  locks  any  damage. 


A  Mauretania  IN  THE  LOCKS 

From  the  foregoing  it  will  be  seen  that  a  great 
deal  of  electric  current  will  be  required  in  the 
operation  of  the  locks.  This  will  be  generated  at 
a  big  station  at  Gatun,  with  a  smaller  one  at 
Miraflores,  and  they  will  be  connected.  The 
overflow  water  will  be  used  for  generating  the 
required  current,  and  in  addition  to  the  operation 
of  the  lock  machinery  it  will  operate  the  spillway 
gates,  furnish  the  necessary  lighting  current,  and 


68  THE  PANAMA  CANAL 

eventually  it  may  furnish  the  power  for  an  elec- 
trified Panama  Railroad. 

In  passing  a  ship  through  the  canal  it  will  be 
necessary  to  open  and  close  23  lock  gates,  of  an 
aggregate  weight  of  more  than  25,000  tons,  to 
lower  and  raise  12  fender  chains,  each  weighing 
24,000  pounds,  and  to  shut  and  open  dozens  of 
great  valves,  each  of  which  weighs  tons.  All 
these  operations  at  each  set  of  locks  will  be  con- 
trolled by  one  man,  at  a  central  switchboard.  In 
addition  to  these  operations  there  is  the  towing 
apparatus.  The  arrangement  at  Gatun  is  typical; 
there  4  fender  chains  must  be  operated,  6  pairs  of 
miter  gates,  and  46  valves.  In  all  not  less  than 
98  motors  will  be  set  in  motion  twice,  and  some- 
times this  number  may  be  increased  to  143.  Some 
of  them  are  more  than  half  a  mile  away  from  the 
operator,  and  half  of  them  are  nearly  a  quarter  of 
a  mile  away. 

The  operator  in  his  control  house  will  be  high 
enough  to  have  an  uninterrupted  view  of  the 
whole  flight  of  locks  over  which  he  has  command. 
His  control  board  will  consist  of  a  representation 
of  the  locks  his  switches  control.  On  his  model  he 
will  see  the  rise  and  fall  of  the  fender  chains  as  he 
operates  them,  the  movement  of  the  big  lock  gates 
as  they  swing  open  or  shut,  the  opening  and  closing 
of  the  valves  which  regulate  the  water  in  the  cul- 
verts, and  the  rise  and  fall  of  the  water  in  the 
locks. 

A  system  of  interlocked  levers  will  prevent  him 
from  doing  the  wrong  thing  in  handling  his 
switches.  Before  he  can  open  the  valves  at  one 
end  of  a  lock  he  must  close  those  at  the  other  end. 


THE  LOCK  MACHINERY  69 

Before  he  can  open  the  lock  gates,  the  valves  in 
the  culverts  must  be  set  so  that  no  harm  can 
result.  Before  he  can  start  to  open  a  lock  gate, 
he  must  first  have  released  the  miter-forcing 
machine  that  latches  the  gates.  Before  he  can 
close  the  gates  protected  by  a  fender  chain,  he 
must  first  have  thrown  the  switch  to  bring  the 
fender  chain  back  to  its  protecting  position,  and 
he  can  not  throw  the  switch  to  lower  the  chain 
until  he  first  has  provided  for  the  opening  of  the 
gate  it  protects.  All  of  this  interlocking  system 
makes  it  next  to  impossible  to  err,  and  taking  into 
consideration  the  additional  safeguard  of  limit 
switches,  which  automatically  cut  off  the  power 
when  anything  goes  wrong,  it  will  be  seen  that  the 
personal  equation  is  all  but  removed  from  the 
situation, 


CHAPTER  VI 

CULEBRA   CUT 

CULEBRA  CUT!  Here  the  barrier  of  the 
continental  divide  resisted  to  the  utmost 
the  attacks  of  the  canal  army;  here  dis- 
turbed and  outraged  Nature  conspired  with  gross 
mountain  mass  to  make  the  defense  stronger  and 
stronger;  here  was  the  mountain  that  must  be 
moved.  Here  came  the  French,  jauntily  con- 
fident, to  dig  a  narrow  channel  that  would  let 
their  ships  go  through.  The  mountain  was  the 
victor.  And  then  here  came  the  Americans, 
confident  but  not  jaunty.  They  weighed  that 
mass,  laid  out  the  lines  of  a  wider  ditch,  arranged 
complicated  transportation  systems  to  take  away 
the  half  hundred  million  cubic  yards  of  earth  and 
rocks  that  they  had  measured.  Nature  came  to 
the  aid  of  the  beleaguered  mountain.  The  vol- 
canic rocks  were  piled  helter-skelter  and  when 
the  ditch  deepened  the  softer  strata  underneath 
refused  to  bear  the  burden  and  the  slides,  slowly 
and  like  glaciers,  crept  out  into  the  ditch,  burying 
shovels  and  sweeping  aside  the  railway  tracks. 
Even  the  bottom  of  the  canal  bulged  up  under  the 
added  stress  of  the  heavier  strata  above. 

Grim,  now,  but  still  confident,  the  attackers 
fought  on.  The  mountain  was  defeated. 

Now  stretches  a  man-made  canyon  across  the 

70 


CULEBRA  CUT        ,  71 

backbone  of  the  continent;  now  lies  a  channel 
for  ships  through  the  barrier;  now  is  found  what 
Columbus  sought  in  vain  —  the  gate  through  the 
west  to  the  east.  Men  call  it  Culebra  Cut. 

Nine  miles  long,  its  average  depth  is  120  feet. 
At  places  its  sides  tower  nearly  500  feet  above  its 
channel  bottom,  which  is  nowhere  narrower  than 
300  feet. 

It  is  the  greatest  single  trophy  of  the  triumph 
of  man  over  the  terrestrial  arrangement  of  his 
world.  Compared  to  it,  the  scooping  out  of  the 
sand  levels  of  Suez  seems  but  child's  play  —  the 
tunnels  of  Hoosac  and  Simplon  but  the  sport  of 
boys.  It  is  majestic.  It  is  awful.  It  is  the 
Canal. 

When  estimates  for  digging  the  canal  were 
made,  it  was  calculated  that  53,000,000  cubic 
yards  of  material  would  have  to  be  removed  from 
the  cut,  and  that  under  the  most  favorable  con- 
ditions it  would  require  eight  and  a  half  years  to 
complete  the  work.  But  at  that  time  no  one  had 
the  remotest  idea  of  the  actual  difficulties  that 
would  beset  the  canal  builders;  no  one  dreamed 
of  the  avalanches  of  material  that  would  slide  into 
the  cut. 

One  can  in  no  way  get  a  better  idea  of  the  mean- 
ing of  the  slides  and  breaks  in  Culebra  Cut  than 
to  refer  to  the  accompanying  figure.  There  it  will 
be  seen  that  whereas  it  was  originally  planned 
that  the  top  width  of  the  cut  at  one  point  should 
be  670  feet,  it  has  grown  wider,  because  of  slides 
and  breaks,  to  as  much  as  1,800  feet  at  one  place. 
In  all,  some  25,000,000  cubic  yards  of  material 
which  should  have  remained  outside  the  canal 


72  THE  PANAMA  CANAL 

prism  slipped  into  it  and  had  to  be  removed  by  the 
steam  shovels. 


THE  EFFECT  OF  SLIDES 


No  less  than  26  slides  and  breaks  were  encount- 
ered in  the  construction  of  Culebra  Cut,  their 
total  area  being  225  acres.  The  largest  covered 
75,  and  another  47  acres.  When  the  slides,  which 
were  more  like  earthen  glaciers  than  avalanches, 
began  to  flow  into  the  big  ditch,  sometimes  steam 
shovels  were  buried,  sometimes  railroad  tracks 
were  caught  beneath  the  debris,  and  sometimes 
even  the  bottom  of  the  cut  itself  began  to  bulge  and 
disarrange  the  entire  transportation  system,  at 
the  same  time  interfering  with  the  compressed  air 
and  water  supplies.  But  with  all  these  trials  and 
tribulations,  the  army  that  was  trying  to  conquer 
the  eternal  hills  that  had  refused  passage  to  the 
ships  of  the  world  for  so  many  centuries,  kept  up 
its  courage  and  renewed  its  attack.  The  result 
is  that  ships  sail  through  Culebra  and  that  engi- 
neers everywhere  have  new  records  of  efficiency 
to  inspire  them. 

These  efficiency  records  are  told  in  the  cost- 
keeping  reports  based  upon  one  of  the  most  care- 
ful and  thorough  cost-accounting  systems  ever 
devised.  This  system  was  instituted  for  the 
purpose  of  keeping  a  check  upon  all  expenditures 


CULEBRA  CUT  73 

by  reducing  everything  to  a  unit  basis  and  then 
comparing  the  cost  of  doing  the  same  thing  at 
different  places.  For  instance,  if  it  were  found 
that  it  cost  more  to  excavate  a  cubic  yard  of 
material  at  one  place  than  at  another,  under 
identical  conditions,  this  fact  was  brought  to  the 
attention  of  the  men  responsible  and  an  intimation 
given  that  there  seemed  to  be  room  for  taking 
up  a  little  lost  motion.  The  lost  motion  usually 
was  recovered  or  else  someone  had  to  be  satisfied 
that  conditions  were  not  identical  after  all. 

In  no  other  part  of  the  canal  work  do  these 
cost-keeping  reports  tell  such  a  graphic  story  as 
in  Culebra  Cut.  In  spite  of  the  fact  that  as  the 
cut  became  deeper  it  became  narrower,  and  the 
slides  and  breaks  became  more  troublesome,  to 
say  nothing  of  the  extra  effort  required  to  get  the 
excavated  material  out  of  the  cut,  every  unit  cost 
was  forced  down  notch  by  notch  and  year  by  year 
until  the  bottom  in  costs  was  reached  only  a  little 
before  the  actual  bottom  of  the  cut  was  exposed 
to  view. 

For  instance,  in  1908  it  cost  llj  cents  a  yard  to 
load  material  with  steam  shovels,  while  in  1912  it 
cost  less  than  7  cents.  In  1908  it  cost  more  than 
14  cents  a  yard  for  drilling  and  blasting;  in  1912 
it  cost  less  than  12  cents.  In  1908  it  cost  $18.54 
to  haul  away  a  hundred  yards  of  spoil;  in  1912 
it  required  only  $13.31  to  perform  the  same  opera- 
tion, although  the  average  distance  it  had  to  be 
hauled  had  increased  50  per  cent.  In  1908  it 
cost  more  than  13  cents  a  yard  to  dump  the  ma- 
terial as  compared  with  less  than  5  cents  in  1912. 
The  whole  operation  of  excavating  and  removing 


74  THE  PANAMA  CANAL 

the  material,  including  overhead  charges  and 
depreciation,  fell  from  $1.03  a  cubic  yard  in  1908 
to  less  than  55  cents  a  yard  in  1912.  And  that 
is  why  232,000,000  cubic  yards  of  material  were 
removed  for  less  than  it  was  estimated  135,000,000 
cubic  yards  would  cost. 

To  remove  the  105,000,000  cubic  yards  of 
earth  from  the  backbone  of  the  Americas  required 
about  6,000,000  pounds  of  high-grade  dynamite 
each  year  to  break  up  the  material,  so  that  it 
might  be  successfully  attacked  by  the  steam 
shovels.  To  prepare  the  holes  for  placing  the 
explosives  required  the  services  of  150  well  drills, 
230  tripod  rock  drills,  and  a  large  corps  of  hand 
drillers.  Altogether  they  drilled  nearly  a  thousand 
miles  of  holes  annually.  During  every  working 
day  in  the  year  about  600  holes  were  fired.  They 
had  an  average  depth  of  about  19  feet.  In  ad- 
dition to  this  a  hundred  toe  holes  were  fired  each 
day,  and  as  many  more  "dobe"  blasts  placed  on 
top  of  large  boulders  to  break  them  up  into  load- 
able sizes.  So  carefully  was  the  dynamite  handled 
that  during  a  period  of  three  years,  in  which  time 
some  19,000,000  pounds  were  exploded  in  Culebra 
Cut,  only  eight  men  were  killed. 

The  transportation  of  the  spoil  from  Culebra 
Cut  was  a  tremendous  job.  A  large  percentage 
of  it  was  hauled  out  in  Lidgerwood  flat  cars. 
Twenty-one  cars  made  up  the  average  Lidgerwood 
train.  It  required  about  140  locomotives  to  take 
care  of  the  spoil,  and  the  average  day  saw  nearly 
3,700  cars  loaded  and  hauled  out  of  the  cut.  In 
a  single  year  1,116,286  carloads  of  material  were 
hauled  out.  There  were  75  trains  in  constant 


o 


CULEBRA  CUT 


75 


operation,  one  for  each  2J  miles  of  track  in  the 
Central  Division,  which  was  approximately  32 
miles  long.  A  huge  steam  shovel,  taking  up  5 


AVERAGE  SHAPE  AND  DIMENSIONS  OP  CtTLEBRA  CUT 

yards  of  material  at  a  mouthful,  would  load  one 
of  these  trains  in  less  than  an  hour  with  some  400 
yards  of  material.  Then  the  powerful  locomotive 
attached  to  it,  assisted  by  a  helper  engine,  would 
pull  the  train  out  of  the  cut,  and  then,  unassisted, 
would  haul  it  to  the  dumping  ground  some  12 
miles  or  more  away. 

Arriving  near  the  scene  of  the  dump,  another 
engine,  having  in  front  of  it  a  huge  horizontal 
steam  windlass  mounted  on  a  flat  car,  was  hooked 
on  the  rear  end  of  the  train.  Then  the  locomo- 
tive which  had  brought  the  train  to  the  dump  was 
uncoupled  and  moved  away,  and  in  its  stead  there 
was  attached  an  empty  flat  car,  on  which  there 
was  a  huge  plow.  A  long  wire  cable  was  stretched 
from  the  big  windlass  at  the  other  end  of  the  train 


76  THE  PANAMA  CANAL 

and  attached  to  this  plow.  As  the  drum  of  the 
windlass  began  to  turn  it  gradually  drew  the  plow 
forward  over  the  21  cars,  plowing  the  material 
off  as  it  went  forward.  The  cars  were  equipped 
with  a  high  sideboard  on  one  side  and  had  none 
at  all  on  the  other.  A  flat  surface  over  which 
the  plow  could  pass  from  car  to  car  was  made  by 
hinging  a  heavy  piece  of  sheet  steel  to  the  fro  at 
end  of  each  car  and  allowing  it  to  cover  the  break 
between  that  car  and  the  next,  thus  affording  a 
practically  continuous  car  floor  over  800  feet  long. 
The  operation  of  unloading  400  yards  of  material 
with  this  plow  seldom  required  more  than  10 
minutes. 

After  the  plow  had  finished  its  work  it  left  a 
long  string  of  spoil  on  one  side  of  the  track  which 
must  be  cleared  away.  So  another  plow,  pushed 
by  an  engine,  attacked  the  spoil  and  forced  it 
down  the  embankment.  This  process  of  unload- 
ing and  spreading  the  material  was  kept  up  until 
the  embankment  became  wide  enough  to  permit 
the  track  to  be  shifted  over.  Here  another  espe- 
cially designed  machine,  the  track  shifter,  was 
brought  into  play.  It  was  a  sort  of  derrick 
mounted  on  a  flat  car,  and  with  it  the  track  shifters 
were  able  to  pick  up  a  piece  of  track  and  lift  it 
over  to  the  desired  position.  With  this  machine 
a  score  of  men  could  do  the  work  that  without  it 
would  have  required  a  gang  of  600  men.^ 

In  addition  to  the  Lidgerwood  dirt  trains  there 
were  a  large  number  of  trains  made  up  of  steel  dump 
cars  which  were  dumped  by  compressed  air,  and 
still  other  trains  made  up  of  small  hand-dumped 
cars,  and  each  class  found  its  own  peculiar  uses. 


CULEBRA  CUT  77 

As  has  been  said,  the  problem  of  digging  the 
big  ditch  has  been  one  of  the  transportation  of  the 
spoil,  and  this  has  involved  numerous  difficulties. 
In  Culebra  Cut  no  little  difficulty  was  experienced 
in  keeping  open  enough  tracks  to  afford  the 
necessary  room  for  dirt  trains.  Slides  came  down 
and  forced  track  after  track  out  of  alignment, 
burying  some  of  them  beyond  the  hope  of  usable 
recovery;  often  the  very  bottom  of  the  cut  itself 
heaved  up  under  the  stress  of  the  heavy  weight 
of  faulty  strata  on  the  sides  of  the  mountain; 
and  sometimes  the  slides  and  breaks  threatened 
entirely  to  shut  up  one  end  of  the  cut. 

In  hauling  away  the  spoil  one  improvement 
after  another  was  made  in  the  interest  of  efficiency. 
It  was  found  at  first  that  the  capacity  of  a  big 
Lidgerwood  flat  car  was  only  about  16  cubic 
yards,  and  that  with  a  sideboard  on  only  one  side 
of  the  car,  the  load  did  not  center  well  on  the  car, 
thus  placing  an  undue  strain  on  the  wheels  on  one 
side.  The  transportation  department,  therefore, 
extended  the  bed  of  the  car  further  out  over  the 
wheels  on  the  open  side,  and  this  served  a  triple 
purpose  —  it  permitted  the  steam  shovels  to  load 
the  cars  so  that  the  load  rested  in  the  center, 
increased  the  capacity  of  each  car  by  about  3 
yards,  and  permitted  the  unloader  plow  to  throw 
the  spoil  further  from  the  track,  thus  adding  to  the 
efficiency  of  the  dumping  apparatus. 

Frequent  breaks  in  the  trains  were  caused  by 
worn  couplers.  These  accidents  were  almost 
entirely  overcome  by  equipping  each  train  with  a 
sort  of  "bridle"  which  prevented  the  separation 
of  the  cars  in  the  event  of  the  parting  of  a  defective 


78  THE  PANAMA  CANAL 

coupler.  In  the  operation  of  the  unloader  plows 
it  was  found  that  the  big  cables  frequently  broke 
when  a  plow  would  strike  an  obstruction  on  the 
car,  and  this  caused  no  end  of  annoyance  and  fre- 
quent delays.  Then  someone  thought  of  putting 
between  the  cable  and  the  plow  a  link  whose  break- 
ing point  was  lower  than  that  of  the  cable.  After 
that  when  a  plow  struck  an  obstruction  the  cable 
did  not  part  —  the  link  simply  gave  way,  and 
another  was  always  at  hand.  On  the  big  spread- 
ers no  less  than  51  improvements  were  made,  each 
the  answer  of  the  engineers  to  some  challenge 
from  the  stubborn  material  with  which  they  had 
to  contend. 

The  major  portion  of  the  material  excavated 
from  the  canal  had  to  be  hauled  out  and  dumped 
where  it  was  of  no  further  use.  From  the  Central 
Division  alone,  which  includes  Culebra  Cut,  up- 
ward of  a  hundred  million  cubic  yards  of  material 
was  hauled  away  and  dumped  as  useless.  At 
Tabernilla  one  dump  contained  nearly  17,000,000 
cubic  yards.  A  great  deal  of  spoil,  however,  was 
used  to  excellent  advantage.  Wherever  there 
was  swampy  ground  contiguous  to  the  permanent 
settlements  it  was  covered  over  with  material 
from  the  cut  and  brought  up  above  the  water 
level.  Many  hundreds  of  acres  were  thus  con- 
verted from  malaria-breeding  grounds  into  high 
and  dry  lands. 

During  the  last  stages  of  the  work  in  Culebra 
Cut  it  was  found  that  some  of  the  slides  were  so 
bad  that  they  were  breaking  back  of  the  crest  of 
the  hills  that  border  the  cut.  Therefore  it  was 
found  to  be  feasible  to  attack  the  problem  by 


CULEBRA  CUT  79 

sluicing  the  material  down  the  side  of  the  hills 
into  the  valley  beyond.  To  this  end  a  big  hy- 
draulic plant  which  had  been  used  on  the  Pacific 
end  of  the  canal  was  brought  up  and  installed 
beyond  the  east  bank  of  the  cut.  A  reservoir  of 
water  was  impounded  and  tremendous  pumps  in- 
stalled. They  pumped  a  stream  of  water  40  inches 
in  diameter.  This  was  gradually  tapered  down  to 
a  number  of  4-inch  nozzles,  and  out  of  these 
spouted  streams  of  water  with  a  pressure  of  80 
pounds  to  the  square  inch.  These  streams  ate 
away  the  dirt  at  a  rapid  rate. 

The  slides  did  not  hold  up  the  completion  of  the 
canal  a  minute,  at  least  to  the  point  of  usability. 
The  day  that  the  lock  gates  were  ready  there  was 
water  enough  in  the  canal  to  carry  the  entire 
American  navy  from  ocean  to  ocean.  That  day 
the  big  dredges  from  the  Atlantic  and  the  Pacific 
were  brought  into  the  cut,  and  with  them  putting 
the  finishing  touches  on  the  slides  at  the  bottom, 
and  the  hydraulic  excavators  attacking  them  at 
the  top,  the  problem  of  the  slides  was  solved. 

Viewing  Culebra  Cut  in  retrospect,  it  proved  an 
immensely  less  difficult  task  than  some  prophesied, 
and  a  much  more  serious  one  than  others  pre- 
dicted. There  were  those  who  opposed  the  build- 
ing of  the  Panama  Canal  because  of  the  belief 
that  Culebra  Cut  could  not  be  dug,  that  Culebra 
Mountain  was  an  effective  barrier  to  human 
ambition.  Also,  there  were  those  who  asserted 
that  Gold  Hill  and  Contractor's  Hill  were  in  danger 
of  sliding  into  the  big  ditch  and  that  they  were 
mountains  which  neither  the  faith  nor  the  pocket- 
books  of  the  Americans  could  remove.  Others 


80  THE  PANAMA  CANAL 

saw  the  handwriting  of  Failure  on  the  wall  in 
the  heaving  up  of  the  bottom  of  the  cut,  inter- 
preting this  as  a  movement  from  the  very  depths 
of  the  earth.  Still  others  saw  it  in  the  smoke  that 
issued  from  fissures  in  the  cut,  which  spoke  to 
them  of  volcanoes  being  unearthed  and  told  them 
that  the  Babel  of  American  ambitions  must  totter 
to  the  ground.  They  did  not  know  that  these 
were  only  little  splotches  of  decomposing  metals 
suddenly  exposed  to  the  air,  any  more  than  their 
fellow  pessimists  knew  that  the  heaving  up  of  the 
bottom  of  the  cut  was  due  to  the  pressure  of  the 
earth  on  the  adjacent  banks. 

To-day  Culebra  Mountain  bows  its  lofty  head 
to  the  genius  of  the  American  engineer  and  to  the 
courage  of  the  canal  army.  Through  its  vitals 
there  runs  a  great  artificial  canyon  nearly  9  miles 
long,  300  feet  wide  at  its  bottom,  in  places  as 
much  as  a  half  mile  wide  at  its  top  and  nearly 
500  feet  deep  at  the  deepest  point.  Out  of  it 
there  was  taken  105,000,000  cubic  yards  of  ma- 
terial, and  at  places  it  cost  as  much  as  $15,000,000 
a  mile  to  make  the  excavations.  Through  it  now 
extends  a  great  ribbon  of  water  broad  enough  to 
permit  the  largest  vessels  afloat  to  pass  one  another 
under  their  own  power,  and  deep  enough  to  carry 
a  ship  with  a  draft  beyond  anything  in  the  minds 
of  naval  constructors  to-day.  With  towering 
hills  lining  it  on  either  side,  with  banks  that  are 
precipitous  here  and  farflung  there,  with  great 
and  deep  recesses  at  one  place  and  another  telling 
of  the  gigantic  breaks  and  slides  with  which  the 
men  who  built  it  had  to  contend,  going  through 
Culebra  Cut  gives  to  the  human  heart  a  thrill 


CULEBRA  CUT  81 

such  as  the  sight  of  no  other  work  of  the  human 
hand  can  give.  Its  magnitude,  its  awe-inspiring 
aspect  as  one  navigates  the  channel  between  the 
two  great  hills  which  stand  like  sentinels  above  it, 
and  the  memory  of  the  thousands  of  tons  of  dyna- 
mite, the  hundreds  of  millions  of  money  and  the 
vast  investment  of  brain  and  brawn  required  in 
its  digging,  all  conspire  to  make  the  wonder 
greater.  It  is  the  mightiest  deed  the  hand  of 
man  has  done. 


CHAPTER  VII 

ENDS    OF    THE    CANAL 

WHILE  the  completed  Panama  Canal  does 
not  wed  the  two  oceans,  or  permit  their 
waters  to  mingle  in  Gatun  Lake,  it  does 
bring  them  a  little  closer  together.  On  the 
Atlantic  side  a  sea-level  channel  has  been  dug  from 
deep  water  due  south  to  Gatun,  a  distance  of  7 
miles.  On  the  Pacific  side  a  similar  channel  has 
been  dug  from  deep  water  in  a  northwesterly  direc- 
tion to  Miraflores,  a  distance  of  8  miles.  It 
follows  that  15  of  the  50  miles  of  the  canal  will  be 
filled  with  salt  water.  The  remaining  35  miles  will 
be  filled  with  fresh  water  supplied  by  the  Chagres 
and  the  lesser  rivers  of  Panama.  The  task  of  dig- 
ging these  sea-level  sections  was  a  considerable 
one  and  almost  every  method  of  ditch  digging 
that  human  ingenuity  has  been  able  to  devise 
was  employed.  Steam  shovels,  dipper  dredges, 
ladder  dredges,  stationary  suction  dredges,  and 
sea-going  suction  dredges,  all  contributed  their 
share  toward  bringing  the  waters  of  the  Atlantic 
to  Gatun  and  those  of  the  Pacific  to  Miraflores. 
In  addition  to  these  methods,  on  the  Pacific  side 
use  was  made  of  the  hydraulic  process  of  exca- 
vating soft  material,  washing  it  loose  with  power- 
ful streams  of  water  and  pumping  it  out  with 
giant  pumps. 

82 


ENDS  OF  THE  CANAL  83 

As^one  travels  along  the  Pacific  end  of  the  canal 
he  is  reminded  of  the  words  of  Isaiah: 

"Every  valley  shall  be  exalted,  and 
every  mountain  and  hill  shall  be  made 
low;  and  the  uneven  shall  be  made  level, 
and  the  rough  places  a  plain." 

Hundreds  of  acres  of  low,  marshy  land  have 
been  filled  up,  either  with  mud  from  the  suction 
dredges  and  the  hydraulic  excavators,  or  with 
spoil  from  Culebra  Cut.  Much  of  this  made  land 
will  be  valuable  for  tropical  agriculture,  while 
other  parts  will  never  serve  any  purpose  other 
than  to  keep  down  the  marshes.  But  they 
afforded  a  dumping  ground  for  material  taken  out 
of  the  canal  prism,  and  added  something  to  the 
improvement  of  health  and  living  conditions  on 
the  Isthmus. 

Probably  the  most  interesting  process  of  exca- 
vation in  the  sea-level  channels  was  that  of  the 
sea-going  suction  dredges.  These  dredges  took 
out  material  more  cheaply  than  any  other  kind  of 
excavating  machinery  used  on  the  Isthmus.  Two 
of  them  were  put  to  work  in  1908,  about  the  time 
the  operations  reached  full-blast  and  have  been 
kept  in  commission  ever  since.  While  it  cost  as 
much  as  $70,000  a  year  to  keep  each  one  in  com- 
mission, they  were  able  to  maintain  an  annual 
average  of  about  5,000,000  cubic  yards  of  material 
excavated  at  a  cost  per  yard  of  5  cents  and  even 
less.  With  steam  shovels  it  ranged  from  10  to  20 
times  as  much  per  yard.  These  big  dredges  were 
built  with  great  bins  in  their  holds  and  equipped 


84         .   ^      THE  PANAMA  CANAL 

with  powerful  20-inch  centrifugal  pumps.  When  at 
work  they  steamed  up  and  down  the  channel,  suck- 
ing up  the  mud,  and  carrying  it  out  to  sea. 

Another  interesting  dredge  used  was  the  big 
ladder  dredge  Corozal.  It  is  a  great  floating  dock, 
as  it  were,  with  a  huge  endless  chain  carrying  52 
immense,  35-cubic-foot  buckets.  On  the  center 
line  amidships  there  is  a  large  opening  down  to  the 
water.  The  big  elevator  framework  carrying  the 
endless  chain  goes  down  through  this  and  into  the 
water  at  a  considerable  angle.  The  buckets  pass 
around  this,  and  as  they  round  the  end  of  it  their 
great  steel  lips  dig  down  into  the  material  until 
filled,  then  they  come  up  at  the  rate  of  three  every 
five  seconds  and  deposit  their  burden  in  a  huge 
hopper  which  conveys  it  to  the  barge  at  the  side 
of  the  dredge.  The  dredge  is  anchored  fast  at  a 

fiven  place,  and  keeps  on  attacking  the  material 
eneath  it  until  the  desired  level  is  reached.  This 
dredge,  with  the  sea-going  suction  dredges,  will 
be  retained  as  the  permanent  dredging  fleet.  The 
stationary  suction  dredges  at  the  two  ends  of  the 
canal  were  used  to  pump  up  the  soft  material  and 
to  force  it  out  through  long  pipe  lines  into  the 
swamps  or  into  the  hydraulic  cores  of  the  earth 
dams. 

Several  old  French  ladder  dredges  were  rescued 
from  the  jungle  and  put  into  commission  at  the 
beginning  of  the  work,  and  they  held  out  faith- 
fully to  the  end,  dividing  honors  with  the  newer 
equipment  in  hastening  the  day  when  the  oceans 
might  go  inland  to  Gatun  and  Miraflores.  While 
they  looked  like  toys  beside  such  giant  excavators 
as  the  Corozal,  they  probably  showed  more 


86  THE  PANAMA  CANAL 

efficiency  than  any  other  class  of  excavators  of 
their  period  of  construction.  They  were  attended 
by  large  self-propelling  scows  built  by  the  French. 
When  these  were  filled  they  steamed  out  to  sea 
and  dumped  their  burden  and  then  steamed  back 
again  for  another  load.  Some  of  the  dredges  were 
attended  by  ordinary  barges  which  were  towed  out 
to  sea  by  tugs  and  dumped. 

Another  interesting  machine  used  on  the  Pacific 
end  of  the  canal  was  the  Lobnitz  rock  breaker. 
This  consists  of  a  sort  of  pile  driver  mounted  on  a 
large  barge.  Instead  of  a  pile  driving  weight 
there  is  a  big  battering  ram  made  of  round  steel, 
pointed  at  one  endo  It  is  lifted  up  perhaps  10  feet 
and  allowed  to  drop  suddenly.  As  some  of  these 
rams  weigh  as  much  as  25  tons  their  striking  force 
may  be  imagined.  When  the  ram  struck  the 
rock  the  top  would  shake  back  and  forth  like  a 
bamboo  pole,  in  spite  of  the  fact  that  it  was  made 
of  the  best  steel  and  more  than  15  inches  in 
diameter.  Sooner  or  later  the  rams  would  break 
off  at  the  water  line,  this  being  due  to  the  fact  that 
the  constant  flexion  at  that  point  set  the  molecules 
in  the  steel  and  took  away  all  its  elasticity. 

It  was  found  desirable  to  excavate  a  part  of  the 
sea-level  channel  before  the  water  was  let  into  it. 
To  accomplish  this  a  big  dam,  or  dike,  was  built 
across  the  channel  several  miles  inland,  and  steam 
shovels  were  used  behind  this  dike.  As  the  work 
neared  completion,  however,  it  was  found  advis- 
able to  let  the  water  come  further  inland,  so  that 
the  dredges  could  extend  the  field  of  their  activi- 
ties. To  do  this  another  dike  was  thrown  across 
the  channel  about  a  mile  north  of  the  first  one, 


ENDS  OF  THE  CANAL  87 

and  water  was  admitted  to  the  section  of  the  big 
ditch  between  these  two  dikes.  The  engineers 
were  afraid  to  cut  a  small  ditch  in  the  top  of  the 
first  dike,  and  allow  the  water  to  eat  the  dam  away 
as  it  flowed  in,  for  fear  that  it  would  rush  in  so 
rapidly  it  would  destroy  the  second  dike.  There- 
fore they  filled  the  basin  between  the  two  dikes 
by  siphon  and  by  pumping,  a  process  which  re- 
quired the  drawing  in  of  billions  of  gallons  of 
water.  This  was  accomplished  in  due  time,  how- 
ever, and  then  16  tons  of  dynamite  was  placed  in 
the  no  longer  useful  dike.  An  electric  spark  did 
the  rest. 

The  distinguishing  features  of  the  ends  of  the 
canal  are  the  big  breakwaters  at  Toro  Point,  at 
the  Atlantic  end,  and  Naos  Island,  at  the  Pacific 
end.  The  former  extends  from  the  shore  out  into 
the  sea  for  a  distance  of  2  miles  and  has  a  large 
lighthouse  at  the  seaward  end.  It  was  built  by 
dumping  stone  from  the  shore  out  into  the  sea, 
this  process  being  followed  by  driving  piles  into 
the  dumped  stone  and  building  a  railroad  on 
the  crest,  over  which  the  stone  was  hauled  for 
its  further  extension.  The  top  of  the  breakwater 
is  covered  with  huge  stones  weighing  from  8  to  20 
tons  each,  these  to  make  sure  that  it  will  stand 
against  the  pounding  of  the  waves.  Two  minor 
breakwaters  were  also  built  at  the  Atlantic  end  to 
protect  the  terminal  basin. 

The  big  dike  at  Naos  Island  in  the  Pacific  is 
more  than  17,000  feet  long  and  transforms  the 
island  into  the  cape  of  a  small  peninsula.  There 
was  a  threefold  purpose  in  its  construction  —  to 
cut  out  the  cross  currents  that  brought  thousands 


88  THE  PANAMA  CANAL 

of  yards  of  sand  and  silt  into  the  canal  channel,  to 
afford  a  dumping  place  for  a  large  quantity  of  the 
spoil  from  Culebra  Cut,  and  to  make  a  connection 
with  the  mainland  for  the  fortifications  on  Naos, 
Flamenco,  and  Perico  Islands.  In  building  it  the 
engineers  were  under  the  necessity  of  first  building 
a  trestle  on  which  the  spoil  trains  could  be  backed 
and  dumped.  The  piles  had  to  be  driven  in  soft, 
blue  mud,  and  as  the  rock  was  dumped,  it  sank 
down  and  down  until,  at  places,  ten  times  as  much 
stone  was  required  as  would  have  been  necessary 
if  the  ocean  bottom  had  been  firm.  In  addition 
to  this  thousands  of  trainloads  of  material  were 
dumped  in  the  landward  end  of  the  dike,  some 
20,000,000  cubic  yards  of  material  being  thus  dis- 
posed of. 

The  last  part  of  the  canal  work  to  be  completed 
will  be  the  terminal  facilities  at  the  ends  of  the  big 
waterway.  At  the  time  this  book  went  to  press 
they  were  something  more  than  a  year  from  com- 
pletion, but  the  indications  were  that  they  would 
be  finished  within  the  time  limit  originally  set  for 
the  completion  of  the  canal  itself.  These  ter- 
minal facilities  consist  of  dry  docks,  wharfage 
space,  storehouses,  and  everything  else  necessary 
to  perform  any  service  that  might  ordinarily  be 
required  for  passing  ships,  whether  they  be  those 
of  commerce  or  of  war.  The  main  coaling  station 
is  to  be  established  at  the  Atlantic  end.  The 
storehouses,  the  laundry,  the  bakery,  and  the 
other  equipment  of  the  Isthmian  Canal  Com- 
mission and  the  Panama  Railroad  also  will  be 
made  a  part  of  the  permanent  terminal  plant  on 
that  side  of  the  Isthmus. 


ENDS  OF  THE  CANAL  89 

A  large  dry  dock  is  being  built  at  the  Pacific 
end  having  the  same  usable  dimensions  as  the 
canal  locks,  capable  of  accommodating  any  vessel 
that  can  pass  through  the  canal.  The  principal 
machine  shops  will  also  be  erected  there,  and  a  coal- 
ing plant  of  half  the  capacity  of  the  one  at  the 
Atlantic  end  will  be  provided.  A  little  to  the  east 
of  the  Pacific  terminal  works  will  be  stationed  the 
capital  of  the  Canal  Zone,  where  the  adminis- 
trative offices,  the  governor's  residence,  and  two 
new  towns  will  be  built.  The  administration 
building,  which  is  to  be  a  three-story  structure  of 
concrete,  hollow  tile,  and  structural  steel,  is  to 
occupy  an  eminence  on  the  side  of  Ancon  Hill, 
which  will  afford  a  splendid  view  of  the  Pacific 
fortifications,  the  entrance  to  the  canal  channel,  a 
part  of  the  port  works,  and  of  the  canal  itself 
from  the  great  continental  divide  to  the  Pacific. 

There  one  may  sit  and  see  ships  coming  into  the 
canal,  tying  up  at  the  docks,  sailing  up  the  big 
ditch,  and  passing  through  the  locks  at  Mira- 
flores  and  Pedro  Miguel.  Near  by  will  be  the 
permanent  home  of  the  marines  who  will  be  sta- 
tioned on  the  Isthmus,  their  barracks  and  grounds 
occupying  the  broad  plateau  on  the  side  of  Ancon 
Hill  made  by  taking  out  the  millions  of  cubic  yards 
of  stone  required  for  the  concrete  works  on  the 
Pacific  side  of  the  Isthmus.  Two  permanent  towns 
will  be  built  at  Balboa,  one  for  the  Americans 
and  the  other  for  the  common  laborers.  The 
American  town  will  be  built  under  the  capitol  hill 
on  a  broad  plain  that  was  made  by  pumping  hy- 
draulic material  into  a  swamp  and  by  dumping 
spoil  from  Culebra  Cut. 


90  THE  PANAMA  CANAL 

When  the  terminal  plant  at  Balboa  is  completed 
it  will  represent  probably  the  most  extensive  and 
adequate  port  works  in  the  New  World.  In 
addition  to  the  main  dry  dock  it  will  have  a  second 
one  which  will  be  smaller,  but  which  will  be  large 
enough  to  accommodate  a  majority  of  the  ships 
that  will  pass  through  the  canal.  The  existing 
dry  dock  at  the  Atlantic  end  will  be  continued  in 
service. 

It  is  certain  that  none  of  these  port  works  will 
ever  fail  by  reason  of  insecure  foundations.  Wher- 
ever unusual  loads  were  to  be  carried  great  piers 
of  reinforced  concrete  were  sent  down  to  solid 
rock,  often  a  distance  of  60  feet  below  the  surface. 
They  consisted  of  a  hollow  shell  of  reinforced  con- 
crete which  was  allowed  to  sink  to  hardpan  of  its 
own  accord  or  under  heavy  weight.  These  shells 
were  built  in  sections  6  feet  high.  The  bottom 
section  was  10  feet  in  diameter,  and  the  lower 
end  was  equipped  with  a  sharp  steel  shoe.  As  the 
section  cut  down  into  the  earth  of  its  own  weight 
and  that  above  it,  laborers  on  the  inside  removed 
the  material  under  the  shoe  and  as  they  did  so 
it  sank  further  down.  The  sections  above  were 
only  8  feet  in  diameter,  and  did  not  quite  fill  up 
the  hole  made  by  the  bottom  of  the  section,  thus 
overcoming  all  skin  friction,  and  permitting  the 
full  weight  of  the  series  of  sections  to  fall  on  the 
lower  one.  A  jet  of  water  was  forced  around  the 
sinking  pier  all  the  time  it  was  going  down,  and 
this  made  its  progress  the  more  easy.  At  times 
the  weight  of  the  superimposed  sections  was 
sufficient  to  force  the  pier  down  through  the  soft 
mud,  while  at  other  times  the  material  became  so 


ENDS  OF  THE  CANAL  91 

heavy  that  even  a  25-ton  weight  on  top  of  the 
pier  scarcely  moved  it.  At  one  place  a  stratum 
of  material  was  struck  about  25  feet  below  the 
surface  which  yielded  sulphuretted  hydrogen  gas. 
This  affected  the  laborers'  eyes,  and  some  of  them 
had  to  go  to  the  hospital  for  treatment.  The  work 
of  digging  out  the  material  was  continued  until 
the  lower  section  reached  bed  rock,  where  it  was 
anchored.  The  sections  themselves  were  tied 
together  with  heavy  iron  rods.  After  they  were 
firmly  in  place  the  interior  was  rilled  up  with  con- 
crete, itself  reinforced,  so  that  the  foundations 
became,  in  reality,  a  series  of  huge  concrete  piles, 
8  feet  in  diameter,  anchored  to  bed  rock. 

The  coaling  plants  at  the  two  terminals  will  be 
the  crowning  features  of  the  terminal  facilities. 
With  an  immense  storage  capacity,  and  with 
every  possible  facility  for  the  rapid  handling  of 
coal,  both  in  shipping  and  unshipping  it,  no  other 
canal  in  the  world  will  be  so  well  equipped.  The  coal 
storage  basin  at  the  Atlantic  end  will  hold  nearly 
300,000  tons.  This  basin  will  be  built  of  rein- 
forced concrete,  and  will  permit  the  flooding  of  the 
coal  pile  so  that  one-half  of  it  will  be  stored  under 
water  for  war  purposes.  It  is  said  that  deteriora- 
tion in  coal  is  not  as  great  in  subaqueous  storage, 
and  at  the  same  time  the  pile  is  less  subject  to  fire. 
The  plant  will  be  able  to  discharge  a  thousand 
tons  of  coal  an  hour  and  to  load  2,000  tons  an 
hour.  Ships  will  not  go  alongside  the  wharves 
to  be  coaled,  but  will  lie  out  in  the  ship  basin  and 
be  coaled  from  barges  with  reloader  outfits.  Spe- 
cial efforts  have  been  made  to  provide  for  the 
quick  loading  of  colliers  in  case  of  war.  The  coal 


92  THE  PANAMA  CANAL 

handling  plant  at  the  Pacific  entrance  will  have 
a  normal  capacity  of  135,000  tons  and  will  be  able 
to  handle  half  as  much  coal  in  a  given  time  as  the 
one  at  the  Atlantic  end. 

There  will  be  big  supply  depots  where  ships 
can  get  any  kind  of  stores  they  need  from  a  few 
buckets  of  white  lead  to  an  anchor  or  a  hawser; 
a  laundry  in  which  a  ship's  wash  can  be  accepted 
at  the  hour  it  begins  its  transit  of  the  canal,  for 
delivery  by  railroad  at  the  other  end  before  it  is 
ready  to  resume  its  ocean  journey;  an  ice  plant 
which  will  replenish  the  cold  storage  compart- 
ments of  ships  lacking  such  facilities.  In  short, 
it  is  proposed  to  attempt  to  do  everything  that 
may  be  done  to  make  more  attractive  the  bid 
of  the  canal  for  its  share  of  business. 


CHAPTER  VIII 

THE   PANAMA   RAILROAD 

WHEN  the  United  States  acquired  the  prop- 
erties of  the  new  French  Canal  Company 
it  found  itself  in  the  possession  of  a  rail- 
road for  which  it  had  allowed  the  canal  company 
$7,000,000.     This  road,  in  the  high  tide  of  its 
history,  had  proved  a  bonanza  for  its  stockholders, 
and  during  the  43  years  between  1855  and  1898  it 
showed  net  profits  five  times  as  great  as  the  original 
cost  of  its  construction. 

When  the  United  States  took  over  the  road 
someone  described  it  as  being  merely  "two  streaks 
of  rust  and  a  right  of  way."  While  the  Panama 
road  as  acquired  by  the  United  States  in  its  pur- 
chase of  the  assets  of  the  new  French  Canal  Com- 
pany might  have  been  all  that  this  phrase  implies,  it 
was  none  the  less  as  great  a  bargain  as  was  ever 
bought  by  any  Government,  and  probably  the 
greatest  bargain  ever  sold  in  the  shape  of  a  rail- 
road. It  was  not  the  rolling  stock  that  was 
valuable,  nor  yet  the  road  itself;  the  real  value 
was  to  be  found  in  the  possibilities  of  the  conces- 
sion. Not  only  was  this  road  destined  to  render 
to  the  United  States  a  service  in  the  building  of 
the  Panama  Canal,  worth  to  Uncle  Sam  a  great 
many  times  more  than  its  cost,  but  it  was  also 
destined  to  yield  a  net  profit  from  its  commercial 

93 


94  THE  PANAMA  CANAL 

operations  which  in  10  ye&rs  would  amount  to 
double  the  price  paid  for  it.  Since  the  Americans 
took  it  over  it  has  been  yielding  net  returns  ranging 
from  a  million  and  a  quarter  to  a  million  and  three- 
quarters  dollars  a  year.  In  these  10  years  it  has 
brought  an  aggregate  profit  of  some  $15,000,000 
into  the  coffers  of  the  United  States. 

While  $7,000,000  may  have  been  a  high  price, 
judged  from  the  standpoint  of  the  physical  value 
of  the  road,  it  was  a  very  reasonable  one,  indeed,  as 
compared  with  the  price  paid  for  it  by  the  new 
French  Canal  Company.  This  company,  which 
sold  it  to  the  United  States  for  $7,000,000,  paid 
the  Panama  Railroad  Company  $18,000,000  for  it 
23  years  before.  When  the  French  Canal  Com- 
pany decided  to  undertake  the  building  of  the 
canal,  it  found  that  the  Panama  Railroad  Com- 
pany held  concessions  that  were  absolutely  nec- 
essary to  the  construction  of  the  canal.  The 
Colombian  Government  had  granted  the  company 
the  concession  to  complete  the  road  in  1849,  and 
had  agreed  that  no  other  interoceanic  communica- 
tion should  be  opened  without  the  consent  of  the 
railroad.  This  gave  to  the  railroad  company  the 
whip  hand  in  trading  with  the  canal  company  and 
it  was  able  to  name  its  own  price. 

When  the  United  States  wanted  to  buy  the 
rights  and  properties  of  the  new  French  Canal 
Company  the  shoe  was  on  the  other  foot.  There 
.vas  only  one  buyer —  the  United  States;  and  it 
could  choose  between  the  Panama  and  Nicaragua 
routes.  If  the  United  States  did  not  buy  the 
property  its  principal  value  would  have  been  what 
it  was  worth  as  an  uncertain  prospect  that  at 


THE  PANAMA  RAILROAD  95 

some  future  time  a  second  Isthmian  canal  might 
be  built.  That  is  why  the  United  States  was 
able  to  buy  from  the  French  for  $7,000,000 
property  that  they  had  bought  for  $18,000,000. 

After  the  United  States  acquired  possession  of 
the  railroad,  one  change  after  another  took  place 
—  now  in  the  location,  now  in  the  rolling  stock, 
now  in  directorate,  and  again  in  location  —  until 
almost  all  that  remained  of  the  original  road  was 
its  name.  It  is  now  built  almost  every  foot  of  the 
distance  on  a  new  location  and  the  permanent 
Panama  Railroad  is  a  thoroughly  modern,  well- 
ballasted,  heavy-railed,  block-signal  operated  line 
of  railway,  built  along  the  east  bank  of  the  Panama 
Canal  from  the  Atlantic  to  the  Pacific.  Nearly 
half  of  the  old  right  of  way  lies  on  the  bottom  of 
Lake  Gatun,  while  the  new  line  skirts  that 
artificial  body  of  water  along  its  eastern  shore,  at 
places  crossing  its  outlying  arms  over  big  bridges 
and  heavy  trestles.  The  construction  of  this 
new  line  was  attended  with  much  difficulty  and 
probably  no  other  road  in  the  world  has  such  a 
great  percentage  of  fills  and  embankments  in 
proportion  to  its  length.  One  embankment,  a 
mile  and  a  quarter  long  and  82  feet  high,  required 
upward  of  2,500,000  yards  of  material  for  its  con- 
struction. The  road  is  built  about  10  feet  above 
the  water's  edge,  and  more  than  12,000,000  cubic 
yards  of  material  was  required  to  make  the  fills 
necessary  to  carry  the  road  bed  at  this  elevation. 

When  the  United  States  took  over  the  French 
property  it  was  decided  that  the  canal  work  and 
the  railroad  operations  should  be  maintained  as 
distinct  activities.  It  was  agreed  that  the  Canal 


96  THE  PANAMA  CANAL 

Commission  should  have  the  right  to  haul  its 
dirt  trains  over  the  Panama  Railroad,  and  in 
compensation  therefor  the  commission  undertook 
to  build  a  new  road  to  take  the  place  of  the  old 
line,  which  was  in  the  way  of  the  completion  of 
the  canal. 

The  work  of  relocating  the  road  was  undertaken 
early  in  the  construction  of  the  canal  in  order  that 
it  might  be  completed  by  the  time  the  old  road 
had  to  be  abandoned.  It  was  built  at  a  cost  of 
approximately  $9,000,000,  or  close  to  $170,000 
a  mile.  It  is  interesting  to  note  that  the  cost  of 
this  thoroughly  modern  railroad  was  only  about  a 
million  dollars  more  than  the  cost  of  the  first 
Panama  road  which  has  been  built  with  rather  less 
than  usual  attention  to  grades,  and  with  small  rails 
and  light  bridges.  The  relocated  Panama  Rail- 
road was  turned  over  to  the  railroad  company  in 
1912. 

How  good  a  bargain  the  United  States  secured 
when  it  acquired  the  Panama  Railroad  is  shown 
by  the  fact  that  during  the  10  years  of  canal  work 
the  net  earnings  of  the  railroad  company  have 
reimbursed  the  United  States  for  the  cost  of  the 
old  road  and  the  construction  of  the  new  one,  to 
say  nothing  of  the  invaluable  aid  rendered  in  the 
building  of  the  canal. 

The  relations  existing  between  the  Isthmian 
Canal  Commission  and  the  Panama  Railroad 
Company  during  the  years  of  the  construction  of 
the  canal  were  somewhat  peculiar.  The  Panama 
Railroad  Company  is  as  much  the  property  of  the 
United  States  as  the  canal  itself,  yet  the  books  of 
the  two  organizations  were  kept  as  carefully  sep- 


THE  PANAMA  RAILROAD  97 

arate  and  distinct  as  though  they  were  under 
entirely  different  ownership.  The  Panama  Rail- 
road Company,  being  a  chartered  corporation, 
under  the  terms  of  its  ownership  could  engage  in 
commercial  business  with  all  of  the  facility  of  a 
private  corporation.  Money  received  by  the 
Isthmian  Canal  Commission  from  outside  sources 
had  to  be  covered  into  the  treasury  and  reappro- 
priated  for  distinct  and  special  purposes.  On  the 
other  hand,  the  railroad  company  could  use  its 
money  over  and  over  again  without  turning  it 
back  into  the  treasury.  This  advantage  of  opera- 
tion was  a  useful  one  in  conducting  the  road  itself, 
and  also  in  the  construction  of  the  canal. 

There  was  another  reason  which  led  the  canal 
authorities  to  advocate  the  maintenance  of  the 
two  organizations  as  separate  entities.  This 
had  to  do  with  the  concession  rights.  Under  the 
terms  of  the  concession  of  the  railroad  "company 
the  property  was  to  revert  to  the  Republic  of 
Colombia  in  1967,  or  at  any  earlier  date  should 
the  company  cease  to  exist  as  such.  While  most 
authorities  agree  that  with  the  secession  of  Panama 
and  the  setting  up  of  the  new  Government  all  of 
Colombia's  rights  in  the  railroad  company  passed 
with  the  territory,  and  while  the  treaty  between 
the  United  States  and  the  Republic  of  Panama 
expressly  provides  that  the  United  States  shall 
have  "absolute  title  —  free  from  every  present 
or  reversionary  interest  or  claim"  in  the  railroad, 
the  Republic  of  Colombia  contends  that  it  pos- 
sesses some  rights  with  reference  to  the  railroad 
and,  not  desiring  to  complicate  matters,  the  canal 
authorities  thought  it  best  to  live  up  to  the  letter 


08  THE  PANAMA  CANAL 

of  the  treaty,  in  spite  of  Panama's  express  grant 
of  title  free  from  reversionary  interest  or  claim. 

While  it  was  deemed  desirable  to  have  the 
Panama  Railroad  operated  as  a  separate  organi- 
zation, it  was  equally  important  that  it  should  be 
operated  in  a  way  that  its  interests  always  would 
be  subordinate  to  those  of  the  canal.  It  was 
decided  that  the  best  way  to  accomplish  this  was 
to  make  the  chairman  and  chief  engineer  of  the 
Canal  Commission  the  president  of  the  railroad 
company,  and  the  members  of  the  commission 
its  directors.  The  stock  of  the  company  is  held 
in  the  name  of  the  Secretary  of  War,  with  the 
exception  of  a  few  shares  held  by  the  directors  to 
entitle  them  to  membership  on  the  board.  There 
are  also  a  few  directors  chosen  from  other  parts 
of  the  Government  service,  but  their  activities 
are  purely  perfunctory. 

In  addition  to  the  railroad,  the  Panama  Railroad 
Company  also  operates  a  steamship  line  between 
New  York  and  Colon.  This  line  was  acquired 
with  other  properties  of  the  new  French  Canal 
Company  as  a  part  of  the  Panama  Railroad's 
holdings.  There  were  only  a  few  years  during  the 
construction  period  when  this  steamship  line  did 
not  show  a  loss.  But  the  advantages  of  having  a 
steamship  line  for  carrying  the  supplies  of  the 
canal  were  so  great,  because  of  the  special  facilities 
that  could  be  provided,  that  the  loss  was  more 
than  compensated  by  them.  During  the  year 
1912  the  cost  of  operating  this  steamship  line  was 
$305,000  greater  than  the  revenues  derived  from 
its  operation.  But,  at  the  same  time  there  was 
a  return  of  net  earnings  by  the  Panama  Railroad 


THE  PANAMA  RAILROAD  99 

of  over  $2,000,000,  at  least  a  part  of  which  was 
made  possible  by  the  operation  of  the  steamship 
line.  Even  after  deducting  the  losses  sustained 
in  the  operation  of  the  steamship  company  there 
was  a  net  profit  of  more  than  $1,700,000,  which  for 
a  railroad  of  less  than  50  miles  in  length  is  no 
small  item. 

As  a  matter  of  fact,  Government  ownership  of 
railways  as  applied  at  Panama  is  remarkably 
successful  from  the  standpoint  of  the  Government, 
and  partially  so  to  the  patrons  of  the  railroad. 
Probably  no  railroad  in  the  United  States  could 
show  net  earnings  per  mile  of  line  anywhere  com- 
parable with  those  of  the  Panama  Railroad. 

The  rates  for  passengers  and  baggage  across  the 
Isthmus  were  rather  high  for  first-class  passengers, 
the  fare  for  the  48-mile  trip  being  $2.40,  or  5 
cents  a  mile.  The  second-class  rate  was  only 
half  as  much.  On  the  handling  of  freight  the 
railroad  had  to  divide  the  through  rate  with  the 
steamship  companies  of  the  Atlantic  and  the 
Pacific,  but,  while  the  rates  were  high,  judged  by 
American  standards,  and  the  percentages  of 
profits  very  large,  the  service  maintained  was  so 
superior  to  that  encountered  on  the  privately 
owned  railroads  of  the  Tropics  that  no  one  ever 
seriously  complained  of  the  charges. 

One  of  the  most  important  services  rendered  by 
the  Panama  Railroad  Company  in  the  construction 
of  the  canal  was  in  connection  with  the  commis- 
sary. It  had  more  to  do  with  the  maintenance  of  a 
reasonable  standard  of  living  cost  on  the  Isthmus 
than  anything  else. 

When  the  canal  was  nearing  completion  it  be/. 


/100  THE  PANAMA  CANAL 

came  advisable  to  determine  what  role  the  Panama 
Railroad  should  play  after  the  permanent  organi- 
zation went  into  effect.  Should  it  be  continued 
as  a  separate  entity  distinct  from  the  canal  but 
controlled  by  the  canal  authorities?  Or  should  it 
be  merged  into  the  Canal  Government  and  oper- 
ated purely  as  an  auxiliary  of  the  canal  with  no 
separate  existence?  This  matter  was  carefully 
weighed  by  the  canal  authorities  and  the  Govern- 
ment at  Washington,  and  it  was  finally  decided 
that  the  best  plan  would  be  to  operate  them  as 
separate  entities,  but  to  have  all  the  work  done 
by  single  organization.  Another  question  that 
arose  was  whether  the  Panama  Railroad  Steam- 
ship Line  should  be  operated  as  a  Government 
line  after  the  completion  of  the  canal.  Recalling 
the  fact  that  the  line  never  had  been  a  profitable 
one,  and  that  there  was  no  further  reason  why  it 
should  be  continued  in  operation  with  an  annual 
deficit,  the  recommendation  was  made  by  the 
chairman  and  the  chief  engineer  that  the  ships 
should  be  disposed  of  and  the  line  discontinued. 

As  the  tide  of  tourist  travel  set  toward  Panama, 
the  serious  problem  of  taking  care  of  thousands  of 
visitors  confronted  the  canal  authorities.  There 
were  times  when  every  available  facility  for  taking 
care  of  lodgers  was  called  into  requisition,  and  still 
hundreds  of  American  tourists  had  to  find  quar- 
ters in  cheap,  vermin-infested  native  hotels  at 
Colon.  Believing  that  the  situation  demanded 
a  modern  hotel  at  the  Atlantic  side  of  the  Isthmus, 
and  having  in  mind  the  success  of  the  Government 
in  the  construction  and  maintenance  of  the  Tivoli 
Hotel  at  the  Pacific  side,  it  was  decided  by  the 


THE  PANAMA  RAILROAD  lot- 

Secretary  of  War  that  the  Panama  Railroad  Com- 
pany should  build  a  new  hotel  at  Colon,  to  be 
operated  by  that  company  for  the  Government. 
The  result  was  the  beautiful  Washington  Hotel, 
in  whose  architecture  one  finds  the  world's  best 
example  of  northern  standards  of  hotel  construc- 
tion adapted  to  tropical  needs. 

Built  of  concrete  and  cement  blocks,  it  is  con- 
structed in  a  modified  Spanish  Mission  style  that 
makes  it  cool  and  comfortable  at  all  times.  Its 
public  rooms,  from  the  main  lobby  to  the  dining- 
rooms,  from  the  ladies'  parlor  to  the  telephone  and 
cable  rooms,  from  the  barber  shop  to  the  billiard 
room,  are  large,  airy,  and  most  attractively  fur- 
nished. Its  ball  room,  opening  on  three  sides  to 
the  breezes  borne  in  from  the  Caribbean  is  a  delight 
to  the  disciples  of  Terpsichore,  while  its  open-air 
swimming  pool,  said  to  be  the  largest  hotel  swim- 
ming pool  in  the  world,  affords  ideal  facilities 
for  those  /ho  otherwise  would  sigh  for  the  surf. 
Persons  who  have  visited  every  leading  hotel  in 
the  New  World,  from  the  Rio  Grande  southward 
to  the  Strait  of  Magellan,  say  that  it  is  without 
a  superior  in  all  that  region  and,  perhaps,  without 
an  equal  except  for  one  in  Buenos  Aires. 

Here  one  may  find  accommodations  to  suit  his 
taste  and  largely  to  meet  the  necessities  of  his 
pocketbook.  The  best  rooms  with  bath  cost  $5 
a  day  for  one,  or  $6  for  two.  Table  d'hote  meals 
are  served  at  $1  each,  while  those  who  prefer 
it  may  secure  club  breakfasts  and  a  la  carte  serv- 
ice. Anyone  who  has  visited  the  Hotel  Washing- 
ton, situated  as  it  is  on  Colon  Beach,  where  the 
breakers  sweep  in  from  the  Caribbean  Sea,  feels' 


40«:  THE  PANAMA  CANAL 


that  Uncle  Sam  is  no  less  successful  as  a  hotel 
keeper  than  as  a  builder  of  canals. 

The  Panama  Railroad,  under  the  American 
regime,  has  always  looked  well  after  the  comfort 
of  its  patrons.  The  coaches  are  of  the  standard 
American  type,  and  enough  of  them  are  run  on 
every  train  to  make  it  certain  that  no  patron 
need  stand  for  lack  of  a  seat.  The  most  popular 
trains  carry  from  8  to  12  cars.  These  trains  are 
run  on  convenient  schedules,  permitting  a  person 
to  go  and  come  from  any  point  on  the  road  in  any 
forenoon  or  afternoon.  All  coaches  are  supplied 
with  hygienic  drinking  cups,  and  in  every  way 
the  Panama  Railroad  shows  that  Uncle  Sam  is 
solicitous  for  the  welfare  of  his  patrons. 

All  the  rolling  stock  on  the  Isthmus  is  built  on  a 
5 -foot  gauge,  this  having  been  the  gauge  of  the 
original  Panama  Railroad.  As  the  rolling  stock 
of  the  Canal  Commission  had  to  run  over  the  lines 
of  the  Panama  Railroad,  it  also  was  built  on  the 
gauge.  When  this  rolling  stock  is  disposed  of  it 
will  be  necessary  to  readjust  the  gauge  to  meet  the 
ordinary  American  standard  which  is  2^  inches 
narrower.  It  has  been  estimated  that  the  engine 
axles  can  be  shortened  for  $750  per  locomotive 
and  those  of  cars  at  prices  ranging  from  $27  to 
$31  per  car. 

The  first  attempt  to  build  the  Panama  Railroad 
was  made  in  1847,  when  a  French  company  se- 
cured a  charter  from  the  Government  of  Colombia 
for  a  building  of  a  road  across  the  Isthmus.  This 
company  was  unable  to  finance  the  project  and 
the  concession  lapsed. 

In  1849  William  H.  Aspinwall,  John  L.  Stevens, 


THE  PANAMA  RAILROAD  103 

and  Henry  Chauncey,  New  York  capitalists, 
undertook  the  construction  of  the  road.  The 
terms  of  the  concession  provided  that  the  road 
would  be  purchased  by  the  Government  at  the 
expiration  of  20  years  after  its  completion  for 
$5,000,000.  The  loss  of  life  in  the  construction 
of  this  road,  serious  as  it  was,  has  been  monumen- 
tally exaggerated.  It  is  an  oft-repeated  statement 
that  a  man  died  for  every  tie  laid  on  the  road. 
This  would  mean  that  there  were  150,000  deaths 
in  its  construction.  As  a  matter  of  fact,  the  total 
number  of  persons  employed  during  the  six  years 
the  line  was  being  built  did  not  exceed  6,000. 
But  among  these  the  death  rate  was  very  high. 
Several  thousand  Chinese  were  brought  over  and 
they  died  almost  like  flies.  Malaria  and  yellow 
fever  were  the  great  scourges  they  had  to  encoun- 
ter, although  smallpox  and  other  diseases  carried 
away  hundreds. 

The  road  was  completed  in  January,  1855. 
Before  the  last  rail  was  laid  more  than  $2,000,000 
had  been  taken  in  for  hauling  passengers  as  far 
as  the  road  extended.  The  way  in  which  the 
original  50-cent  per  mile  rate  across  the  Isthmus 
was  established  is  interesting.  The  chief  engineer 
encountered  much  trouble  from  people  who  wanted 
to  use  the  road  as  far  inland  as  it  went  from  Colon, 
so  he  suggested  that  a  50-cent  rate  be  established, 
thinking  to  make  it  prohibitory.  But  the  people 
who  wanted  to  cross  the  Isthmus  were  willing 
to  pay  even  50  cents  a  mile.  Hence  for  years 
after  the  completion  of  the  road  the  passenger  rate 
continued  at  $25  for  the  one-way  trip  across  the 
Isthmus. 


104  THE  PANAMA  CANAL 

The  railroad  proved  to  be  such  an  unexpectedly 
good  investment  that  the  Republic  of  Colombia 
began  to  establish  its  claim  to  acquire  ownership 
of  the  road  at  the  expiration  of  the  20-year  term, 
which  would  take  place  in  1875.  It  was  necessary 
therefore,  that  the  railroad  company  should  take 
steps  to  save  the  railroad  from  a  forced  sale  with 
$5,000,000  as  the  consideration.  Representatives 
were  dispatched  to  Bogota  with  instructions  to  get 
an  extension  of  the  concession  under  the  most 
favorable  terms  possible.  As  it  was  realized  that 
the  Republic  of  Colombia  held  the  whip  hand  in 
the  negotiations,  the  railroad  company  understood 
that  if  it  wished  to  escape  selling  its  great  revenue 
producing  road  for  $5,000,000  it  would  have  to 
meet  any  terms  Colombia  might  dictate.  The 
result  of  this  mission  was  an  agreement  by  the 
railroad  that  in  consideration  of  an  extension  of 
the  concession  for  a  term  of  99  years  it  would  pay 
to  the  Colombian  Government  $1,000,000  spot 
cash  and  $250,000  a  year  during  the  life  of  the 
concession.  That  annual  payment  was  continued 
as  long  as  the  Isthmus  remained  a  part  of  the 
Republic  of  Colombia.  Under  the  terms  of  the 
treaty  between  the  United  States  and  the  Repub- 
lic of  Panama  it  was  resumed  again  in  1913,  to  be 
paid  by  the  United  States  to  the  Republic  of 
Panama  throughout  all  the  years  that  the  United 
States  maintains  and  operates  the  Panama  Canal. 


CHAPTER  IX 

SANITATION 

PRIMARILY,  the  conquest  of  the  Isthmian 
barrier  was  the  conquest  of  the  mosquito. 
Not  mountains  to  be  leveled,  nor  wild 
rivers  to  be  tamed,  nor  yet  titanic  machinery  to 
be  installed,  presented  the  gravest  obstacles  to 
the  canal  builders.  Their  most  feared  enemies 
were  none  of  these,  but  the  swarms  of  mosquitoes 
that  bred  in  myriads  in  every  lake,  in  every  tiny 
pool,  in  every  clump  of  weeds  on  the  rain-soaked, 
steaming,  tropical  land.  For  these  mosquitoes 
were  the  bearers  of  the  dread  germs  of  yellow 
fever  and  of  malaria;  and  the  conditions  that 
encouraged  their  multiplication  bred  also  typhoid 
and  all  manner  of  filthy  disease.  Each  mos- 
quito was  a  potential  messenger  of  death.  The 
buzzing,  biting  pests  had  defeated  the  French  in 
Panama  without  the  French  ever  having  recog- 
nized the  source  of  the  attack.  It  was  because 
the  Americans,  thanks  to  Great  Britain  and  to 
Cuba,  knew  the  deadly  qualities  of  the  mosquitoes 
that  they  were  able  to  plan,  under  the  leadership 
of  Col.  W.  C.  Gorgas,  a  sanitary  campaign  of 
unprecedented  success.  It  achieved  two  vic- 
tories. One  was  that  it  made  of  the  Canal  Zone 
the  most  healthful  strip  of  land  under  tropic  skies. 
The  other  is  the  Panama  Canal, 

100 


106  THE  PANAMA  CANAL 

When  one  looks  about  in  an  effort  to  place  the 
credit  for  these  great  sanitary  achievements  he 
must  go  back  to  Cuba,  where  the  yellow  fever 
commission,  consisting  of  Reed,  Carroll,  Lazear, 
and  Agrimonte,  made  the  remarkable  investiga- 
tions proving  that  yellow  fever  is  transmissible 
only  through  the  bite  of  a  mosquito.  He  must 
go  still  further  back  to  Maj.  Roland  Ross  of  the 
British  Army,  and  his  epoch-making  discovery 
that  malaria  is  conveyed  only  by  the  bite  of 
another  kind  of  mosquito.  And,  if  he  is  just  to 
all  who  have  contributed  to  the  establishment  of 
the  insect-bearing  theory  of  disease,  he  must  not 
forget  Sir  Patrick  Manson  who  first  proved 
that  any  disease  could  be  transmitted  by  insect 
bites.  It  was  he  who  discovered  that  filariasis 
is  transmissible  by  this  method  alone.  It  was 
from  him  that  Ross  gathered  the  inspiration  that  is 
releasing  humanity  from  one  of  the  most  insidious 
of  all  the  diseases  to  which  mortal  flesh  is  heir. 
And  it  was  from  Ross's  malaria  discoveries, 
in  turn,  that  Reed  carried  forward  to  successful 
proof  the  theory  which  had  persisted  in  some  quar- 
ters for  generations  that  yellow  fever  was  trans- 
missible through  mosquitoes;  a  theory  already 
partially  proved  by  Dr.  Carlos  Finley,  of  Havana, 
20  years  earlier. 

But  all  of  the  surmises  and  theories  came  short 
of  the  truth  until  Reed,  Carroll,  Lazear,  and 
Agrimonte  (Lazear  at  the  cost  of  his  life  and  Carroll 
at  the  cost  of  a  nearly  fatal  attack  of  yellow 
fever)  took  up  the  work  of  proving  that  there  was 
only  one  way  in  which  yellow  fever  could  be 
transmitted;  namely,  by  the  bite  of  the  mosquito. 


o 


LIEUT.   FREDERIC  MEAR8 


pANAMA   RAILROAD 


SANITATION  107 

Sleeping  with  patients  who  had  yellow  fever, 
wearing  the  clothes  of  those  who  had  died  from 
it,  eating  from  utensils  from  which  yellow  fever 
victims  had  eaten  —  in  short,  putting  to  the  most 
rigid  test  every  other  possible  method  of  infection, 
they  proved  by  every  negative  test  that  yellow 
fever  could  not  be  produced  in  any  way  other  than 
by  the  bite  of  a  mosquito. 

The  next  step  was  to  give  affirmative  proof 
that  yellow  fever  was  caused  by  the  bite  of  the 
female  "stegomyia"  —  she  of  the  striped  stock- 
ings and  the  shrill  song.  This  meant  that  someone 
had  to  have  enough  love  for  humanity  to  risk 
his  life  by  inviting  one  of  the  worst  forms  of 
death  to  which  human  flesh  is  heir.  Those  doc- 
tors knew  that  they  could  not  as  brave  men  ask 
others  to  undergo  the  risks  that  they  themselves 
might  not  accept,  so  in  a  little  council  chamber  in 
Havana  the  three  Americans  —  Reed,  Carroll, 
and  Lazear  —  entered  into  a  compact  that  they 
themselves  would  permit  infected  mosquitoes  to 
bite  them.  Reed  was  called  home,  but  Carroll 
and  Lazear  stood  with  the  keen  and  cold  eyes  of 
scientists  and  saw  the  mosquitoes  inject  the  fateful 
poison  into  their  blood.  Later,  after  Lazear 
had  died  and  Carroll  had  stood  in  the  jaws  of 
death,  soldiers  of  the  American  army  in  Cuba 
volunteered  in  the  interest  of  humanity  to  undergo 
these  same  risks.  And  it  was  thus,  at  this  price, 
that  the  world  came  to  know  how  yellow  fever  is 
caused,  and  that  the  United  States  was  to  be  able 
to  build  the  Panama  Canal. 

After  the  guilt  of  the  female  "stegomyia" 
mosquito  was  firmly  established  the  next  problem 


108  THE  PANAMA  CANAL 

was  to  find  a  method  of  combating  her  work. 
Dr.  Reed  and  his.  associates  thought  that  it 
might  be  done  through  a  process  of  immunization, 
using  the  mosquito  to  bite  patients  with  very 
mild  cases  and,  after  the  necessary  period  of 
incubation,  to  transmit  the  disease  to  those  who 
were  to  be  rendered  immune.  It  was  soon  found, 
however,  that  there  was  no  method  of  transmit- 
ting a  mild  infection,  and  the  next  problem  was 
to  combat  the  work  of  the  mosquito  by  isolation 
of  yellow  fever  patients,  and  by  the  extermina- 
tion of  the  mosquitoes  themselves. 

In  Havana  at  this  time  there  was  another  army 
surgeon  who  was  destined  to  write  his  name  high 
upon  the  pages  of  medical  achievement.  He 
was  Dr.  William  C.  Gorgas.  Under  the  patronage 
of  Gen.  Leonard  Wood,  himself  a  physician  and 
alive  to  the  lessons  of  the  yellow  fever  com- 
mission's investigations,  Maj.  Gorgas  undertook 
to  apply  the  doctrine  of  yellow  fever  prevention 
promulgated  by  the  commission,  and  his  efforts 
were  attended  with  brilliant  success.  The  result 
was  that  Havana,  in  particular,  and  Cuba,  in 
general,  were  freed  from  this  great  terror  of 
the  Tropics.  When  President  Roosevelt  came 
to  provide  for  the  building  of  the  Panama 
Canal  one  of  his  early  acts  was  to  appoint  Dr. 
Gorgas  the  chief  sanitary  officer  of  the  Canal 
Zone. 

At  first  there  was  difficulty  in  establishing 
practical  sanitation  at  Panama.  The  chief  sani- 
tary officer  was  then  a  subordinate  of  the  com- 
mission, and,  along  with  all  of  the  other  men  who 
were  trying  to  do  things  on  the  Isthmus,  he  found 


SANITATION  109 

himself  hindered  by  unsatisfactory  conditions 
both  as  to  supplies  and  as  to  force;  consequently, 
his  work  was  no  more  satisfactory  to  himself 
than  it  was  to  the  commission  or  to  the  American 
people.  Under  these  conditions  an  epidemic  of 
yellow  fever  broke  out  in  Panama  in  1905,  and 
it  was  not  long  before  the  yellow  fever  mosquito 
had  seemingly  established  an  alibi  and  had  secured 
a  reopening  of  her  case  before  the  jury  of  public 
sentiment.  People,  to  emphasize  their  disbelief 
in  the  mosquito  theory  of  the  transmission  of  the 
disease,  tore  the  screens  from  their  doors  and  win- 
dows, and  otherwise  proclaimed  their  contempt 
for  the  doctors  and  their  doctrines.  This  matter 
went  so  far  that  the  Isthmian  Canal  Commission 
proposed  not  only  a  change  in  method  but  a 
change  in  personnel  as  well. 

At  this  juncture  Charles  E.  Magoon  became 
governor  of  the  Canal  Zone,  and  he  declared  that 
Dr.  Gorgas  should  have  adequate  financial  and 
moral  support.  He  was  determined  that  the  panic 
which  the  yellow  fever  outbreak  had  engendered 
should  be  halted  — _and  a  panic  it  was,  for  men 
rushed  madly  to  Colon  and  defied  the  efforts  of  the 
commission,  and  of  the  captains  and  crews  of  the 
Panama  Railroad  steamships,  to  prevent  them 
from  returning  to  the  States  without  other  trans- 
portation arrangements  than  a  determination 
to  get  aboard  and  stay  there  until  the  Statue 
of  Liberty  had  been  passed  in  New  York  Harbor. 
So  great  was  this  panic  that  Chief  Engineer  Stevens 
declared  that  there  were  three  diseases  at  Panama: 
Yellow  fever,  malaria,  and  cold  feet;  and  that 
the  greatest  of  these  was  cold  feet.  The  news- 


110  THE  PANAMA  CANAL 

papers  of  the  United  States  at  that  time  quoted 
the  poetry  of  such  writers  as  Gilbert,  who  said: 

"Beyond  the  Chagres  River 
'Tis  said  (the  story's  old) 
Are  paths  that  lead  to  mountains 
Of  purest  virgin  gold; 
'i         But  'tis  my  firm  conviction 
What  e'er  the  tales  they  tell, 
That  beyond  the  Chagres  River 
All  paths  lead  straight  to  hell." 

It  did  not  matter  that  in  four  months  there 
were  only  47  deaths  on  the  Isthmus  from  yellow 
fever  as  compared  with  108  from  malaria  in 
the  same  period  —  men  do  not  stop  to  study 
mortality  tables  and  to  compare  the  relative  fatali- 
ties of  diseases  when  yellow  fever  stares  them  in 
the  face. 

But  after  all,  the  yellow  fever  panic  of  1905 
served  a  good  purpose,  for  if  the  mosquito  thereby 
secured  a  reopening  of  its  case,  it  stirred  the  United 
States  Government  to  give  to  the  sanitary  officers 
of  the  Canal  Zone  the  powers  they  needed,  and 
the  means  required  to  prove  finally  and  forever 
in  the  court  of  last  resort,  the  guilt  of  the  mosquito, 
and  to  establish  for  once  and  all  the  method  of 
combating  its  stealthy  work. 

The  whole  world  recognizes  the  remarkable 
results  in  sanitary  work  that  have  been  achieved 
at  Panama.  While  it  must  be  remembered  that 
the  population  of  the  Canal  Zone  is  made  up  largely 
of  able-bodied  men,  and  that,  therefore,  the  death 
rate  naturally  would  be  lower  than  under  like 


SANITATION  111 

i 

conditions  with  a  normal  population  of  infancy 
and  old  age,  the  fact  remains  that  sanitary  science 
has  converted  the  Zone  from  a  mosquito  paradise 
of  swamp  and  jungle  into  a  region  where  mosquitoes 
have  all  but  disappeared,  and  where  men  are  as 
free  from  danger  of  epidemic  diseases  as  in  the 
United  States  itself. 

The  sanitary  statistics  of  the  Canal  Zone,  and 
of  the  cities  of  Panama  and  Colon,  were  based 
for  several  years  upon  an  erroneous  assumption 
of  population.  The  Department  of  Sanitation 
estimated  the  population  of  the  Canal  Zone  by 
deducting  the  recorded  emigrants  from  the  re- 
corded immigrants  and  assumed  that  the  difference 
represented  a  permanent  addition  to  the  Zone's 
population.  Under  this  method  of  estimating 
population  a  serious  error  crept  in,  since  hundreds 
of  people  came  into  Panama  from  the  Panaman 
outports  and  were  recorded  as  arrivals,  but  who, 
departing  in  small  sailing  vessels  and  launches 
at  night  after  the  port  officers  had  gone  home,  were 
not  recorded  as  having  departed.  In  this  way 
the  sanitary  department  estimates  of  population 
in  the  Canal  Zone  reached  a  total  of  93,000  in 
1912.  The  census  taken  that  year  showed  only 
62,000  population  in  the  Zone.  This  served  to 
make  the  death  rate  given  out  by  the  Department 
of  Sanitation  50  per  cent  lower  than  was  justified 
by  actual  population  conditions. 

But  one  does  not  need  to  consider  figures  to 
realize  what  has  been  accomplished  at  Panama. 
Anyone  wrho  goes  there  and  sees  the  remarkable 
evidence  of  the  success  of  the  efforts  to  conquer 
the  disease  of  the  tropical  jungles,  finds  a  lesson 


THE  PANAMA  CANAL 

taught  that  is  too  impressive  to  need  the  confirma- 
tion of  medical  statistics. 

The  United  States,  after  the  yellow  fever  out- 
break of  1905,  never  counted  the  cost  when  the 
health  of  the  canal  army  was  at  stake.  Not  only 
was  Uncle  Sam  successful  in  his  efforts  to  make 
the  Canal  Zone  and  the  terminal  cities  of  Panama 
and  Colon  healthful  places  of  abode,  but  no 
worker  on  the  canal  was  denied  the  privilege  of  the 
best  medical  care.  An  average  of  $2,000,000  a  year 
was  expended  in  the  prevention  of  sickness  and 
the  care  of  those  who  were  sick.  At  Ancon  and 
at  Colon  large  hospitals  were  maintained  where 
the  white  American  and  the  West  Indian  negro 
had  their  respective  wards.  At  Taboga  a  large 
sanitarium  was  maintained  to  assist  the  recupera- 
tion of  those  who  had  recovered  sufficiently  to 
leave  the  hospital.  Besides  this  there  were  rest 
camps  along  the  line  for  those  not  ill  enough  to  be 
removed  to  the  hospitals,  and  dispensaries  where 
those  who  felt  they  were  not  in  need  of  other 
medical  attention  could  consult  with  the  physicians 
and  get  the  necessary  medicines.  All  medical 
services  to  the  employees  of  the  Canal  Commission 
and  the  Panama  Railroad  were  free,  and  only 
nominal  charges  were  made  for  members  of  their 
families.  No  passenger  train  crossed  the  Isth- 
mus of  Panama  without  carrying  a  hospital  car 
for  taking  patients  to  or  from  the  hospitals.  No 
way  station  was  without  its  waiting  shed  bearing 
the  inscription:  "For  Hospital  Patients  Only." 
Each  community  had  its  dispensary,  its  doctor, 
and  its  sanitary  inspector. 

During  the  year  1912  there  were  48,000  cases 


SANITATION  113 

of  sickness  in  the  Canal  Zone,  of  which  26,000 
were  white  and  22,000  colored.  During  the  same 
year  633,000  trips  to  the  dispensaries  were  made 
by  employees  and  nonemployees,  divided  almost 
evenly  between  white  and  colored.  The  average 
number  of  employees  constantly  sick  in  Ancon 
Hospital  was  712;  in  Colon  Hospital  209;  and  in 
Taboga  Sanitarium  54.  An  average  of  119  were 
in  the  sick  camps  all  the  time  and  50  in  the  quar- 
ters. The  average  number  of  days'  treatment 
per  employee  in  the  hospitals  was  a  little  over 
14;  in  the  sick  camps  a  little  under  3;  and  in 
quarters  2j.  It  cost  $160,000  a  year  to  feed  the 
patients  in  the  hospitals  and  $739,000  a  year  to 
operate  the  hospitals. 

The  work  of  sanitation  proper  cost  some  $400,- 
000  a  year.  This  includes  many  items.  During 
one  year  about  16,000,000  square  yards  of  brush 
were  cut  and  burned;  a  million  square  yards  of 
swamp  were  drained;  30,000,000  square  yards  of 
grass  were  cut;  250,000  feet  of  ditches  were  dug; 
and  some  2,000,000  linear  feet  of  old  ditches  were 
cleaned.  During  the  same  year  nearly  a  million 
garbage  cans  and  over  300,000  refuse  cans  were 
emptied.  In  addition  to  looking  after  the  health  of 
the  Canal  Zone  itself,  it  was  necessary  to  care  for 
that  of  the  cities  of  Panama  and  Colon.  In  the 
city  of  Panama  11,000  loads  of  sweepings  and  25,000 
loads  of  garbage  were  removed  in  one  year;  3,000,000 
gallons  of  water  were  sprinkled  on  the  streets  and 
as  much  more  distributed  to  the  poor  of  the  city. 

During  one  year  the  quarantine  service,  which 
keeps  a  strict  lookout  for  yellow  fever,  bubonic 
plague,  and  other  epidemic  diseases,  inspected 


114  \THE  PANAMA  CANAL 

over  100,000  passengers  coming  into  the  Zone. 
It  required  about  150,000  gallons  of  mosquito 
oil  a  year  to  keep  down  the  mosquitoes.  There 
are  50  known  breeds  of  these  insects  on  the  Isthmus 
and  perhaps  some  20  species  more  which  have  not 
been  identified.  Of  the  50  or  more  species  of 
mosquitoes  11  belonged  to  the  malaria-producing 
family  - —  anopheles.  Their  cousins  of  the  yellow- 
fever-producing  family  —  the  stegomyias  —  boast 
of  only  two  species.  What  the  other  40  or 
more  kinds  are  doing  besides  annoying  suffering 
humanity  has  not  been  determined.  The  mos- 
quito is  comparatively  easy  to  exterminate.  Its 
life  habits  are  such  that  a  terrific  mortality  may 
\>e  produced  among  them  during  infancy.  The 
average  young  mosquito,  during  its  "wriggler" 
state  of  development,  lives  under  the  water  and 
has  to  make  about  8,000  trips  to  the  surface  for 
air  before  it  can  spread  its  wings  and  fly.  If  oil 
is  poured  upon  the  water  it  can  get  no  air  and 
death  by  asphyxiation  follows.  Two  classes  of 
larvaecide  are  used  on  the  waters  to  exterminate 
the  baby  mosquitoes:  One  is  an  oil  used  to  make 
a  scum  over  the  surface;  the  other  a  carbolic 
solution  which  poisons  the  water.  At  the  head 
of  every  little  rivulet  and  tiny,  trickling  stream 
one  sees  a  barrel  out  of  which  comes  an  endless 
drip!  drip!  drip!  These  drops  of  oil  or  poison 
are  carried  down  the  stream  and  make  inhospit- 
able all  of  the  mosquito  nurseries  of  the  marshes 
through  which  the  waters  flow.  In  addition 
to  these  barrels,  men  go  about  with  tanks  on  their 
backs,  spraying  the  marshy  ground  and  the  small, 
isolated  pools  of  water  with  larvaecides. 


THE  GATUN  LOCKS,  WITH  THE  ATLANTIC  ENTRANCE  IN 
THE  DISTANCE 


OPENING  THE  LOWER  GUARD  GATES  OF  THE  GATUN  LOCKS 


'SANITATION  115 

This  method  of  treatment  has  not  exterminated 
all  mosquitoes  on  the  Isthmus,  but  it  has  so 
materially  reduced  their  number  that  one  may 
stay  in  the  Zone  for  weeks  without  seeing  a  single 
one.  This  is  a  freedom,  however,  that  must  be 
paid  for  by  vigilance  of  the  most  painstaking  and 
unremitting  sort.  The  moment  the  work  is  re- 
laxed the  mosquitoes  again  spread  over  the  terri- 
tory. 

The  United  States  Government  will  have  to 
continue  with  the  utmost  care  its  work  of  sani- 
tation and  quarantine  at  Panama.  If,  after  the 
canal  is  completed,  an  epidemic  of  bubonic  plague 
or  yellow  fever  should  break  out,  it  might  very 
seriously  interfere  with  the  operation  of  the  canal 
in  several  ways.  To  begin  with,  it  would  de- 
moralize the  operating  force.  Further  than  this, 
India  and  China  are  afraid  of  yellow  fever  because 
in  both  of  these  countries  the  stegomyia  mosquito 
abounds.  If  the  disease  should  obtain  a  foothold 
there  it  would  be  difficult  to  exterminate.  Europe, 
also,  might  be  expected  to  quarantine  against 
Panama  under  such  conditions.  A  10,000-ton 
freighter  carrying  cargo  through  the  canal  would 
lose  at  least  a  thousand  dollars  for  every  day  it 
was  detained  in  quarantine  by  reason  of  having 
visited  the  canal. 

A  shrewd  observer  has  said  that  the  successful 
sanitation  of  the  Isthmus  of  Panama  is  a  triumph 
at  once  of  medical  science  and  of  despotic  govern- 
ment. Probably  this  does  not  overstate  the 
case.  The  methods  employed  at  Panama  were 
arbitrary,  and  had  to  be.  They  probably  could 
not  be  enforced  at  all  in  a  democratic  community 


116  THE  PANAMA  CANAL 

in  ordinary  times.  The  people  would  rebel  against 
the  severity  of  the  regulations  and  against  the 
incidental  invasion  of  their  privacy.  But  strike 
any  community,  however  free,  with  the  fear  of  a 
swift  and  deadly  disease  and  it  will  submit  — 
as  witness  the  shot-gun  quarantines  that  used  to 
demark  the  northern  limits  of  the  yellow  fever 
zone  in  our  own  Southern  States,  or  the  despotism 
that  governed  New  Orleans  in  the  terror  of  1905. 
At  Panama  this  fear  is  ever  present,  so  there  is 
little  danger  that  a  responsible  majority  there 
ever  would  resist  the  sanitary  work  on  the  grounds 
of  outraged  democracy.  It  may  be  that  a  popular 
government  would  become  careless,  or  inefficient, 
but  it  would  not  renounce  the  pretension.  This 
has  been  proved  in  Cuba. 

The  sanitarians  at  Panama  gave  to  the  workers 
there  a  sense  of  security  that  contributed  no 
little  to  the  spirit  of  determination  so  universally 
remarked  and  commended  by  visitors  to  the  Zone 
during  the  era  of  construction.  While  there  was  no 
immunity  from  sickness  and  death,  yet  there  was 
no  panic,  no  constant  dread,  such  as  destroyed 
the  morale  of  the  French  force.  The  Isthmus 
of  Panama  still  remained  hot,  its  inhabitants  still 
were  forced  to  take  the  precautions  that  aliens 
must  take  in  the  Tropics;  but  they  were  inspired 
with  a  confidence  that  if  these  precautions  were 
taken  they  would  not  be  in  any  greater  danger 
than  if  they  had  remained  in  their  northern  homes. 

Pestilence,  the  scourge  of  the  on-sweeping 
epidemic,  the  plague  of  swift  death  that  is  only  a 
little  worse  than  the  panic  of  fear  it  inspires  — 
this  was  the  thing  that  was  stamped  out. 


SANITATION  117 

Not  since  the  Science  of  Healing  opened  its 
doors  to  the  Science  of  Prevention  have  physicians 
scored  a  greater  victory  in  their  fight  against 
disease  and  death  than  on  the  Isthmus  of  Panama. 
Not  only  did  they  help  to  build  the  canal;  they 
demonstrated  that  tropical  diseases  are  capable 
of  human  control  and  thereby  opened  up  a  vista 
of  hope  undreamed  of  to  all  that  sweltering  and 
suffering  mass  of  humanity  that  inhabits  the 
Torrid  Zone. 


CHAPTER  X 

THE  MAN  AT  THE  HELM 

IN  1905,  William  H.  Taft,  then  Secretary  of 
War,  made  a  trip  to  the  Isthmus  of  Panama 
to  look  over  the  preparations  for  the  construc- 
tion of  the  Panama  Canal,  and  at  the  same  time 
to  consider  the  question  of  the  fortification  of  the 
big  waterway.  On  that  trip  a  member  of  the 
General  Staff  of  the  Army,  who  at  that  time  was 
but  little  known  outside  of  Army  circles,  went  with, 
him.  He  was  a  tall,  broad-shouldered,  bronze- 
faced,  gray-haired  man,  47  years  old.  He  came 
and  went  unheralded.  Few  people  knew  of  the 
engineering  record  he  had  made,  and  no  one  on  the 
Isthmus  dreamed  that  he  was  destined  to  become 
the  commander  in  chief  of  the  army  that  would 
conquer  the  Isthmian  barrier. 

He  returned  to  the  United  States  and  wrote  his 
report  —  a  report  which,  from  the  deep  mastery 
of  the  subject  it  revealed,  attracted  the  favorable 
attention  of  the  Secretary  of  War.  Later  when 
the  board  of  consulting  engineers  came  to  make 
its  report  upon  the  type  of  canal  which  should  be 
built  —  whether  it  should  be  a  sea  level  or  a  lock 
canal  —  the  Secretary  of  War  asked  this  officer 
to  prepare  a  draft  of  his  report  to  the  President 
recommending  the  lock  canal. 

after  New  Year's  Day,  1907,  the  chief 


THE  MAN  AT  THE  HELM  119 

V 

engineer  of  the  canal,  John  F.  Stevens,  dissatis- 
fied with  the  relations  that  existed  between  the 
Government  and  himself,  came  to  the  conclusion 
that  he  could  not  build  the  canal  hampered  as 
he  was  by  red  tape  at  Washington.  It  then  became 
a  question  of  whether  or  not  the  canal  should  be 
built  by  contract  or  by  the  Army.  President 
Roosevelt  asked  for  a  preliminary  report  upon 
this  proposition  and  the  unheralded  Army  engineer 
who  had  visited  the  Canal  Zone  in  1905,  made  it. 
A  few  days  later  there  was  a  conference  between 
President  Roosevelt,  Gen.  Alexander  MacKenzie, 
Chief  of  Engineers  of  the  United  States  Army,  and 
the  Secretary  of  War.  After  this  conference  Maj. 
George  Washington  Goethals  was  summoned  to 
the  White  House  and  informed  by  the  President 
that  it  had  been  determined  to  build  the  Panama 
Canal  under  the  auspices  of  the  Army,  and  that 
he  was  appointed  chairman  and  chief  engineer 
of  the  Isthmian  Canal  Commission.  He  was 
requested  to  keep  the  fact  of  his  appointment  a 
secret  and  to  prepare  immediately  to  go  to  Panama. 
A  ship  sailed  for  the  Isthmus  three  days  thereafter, 
and  he  was  ready  to  sail  when  the  President 
advised  him  that  he  might  wait  over  and  arrange 
affairs  in  Washington,  leaving  in  time  to  get  to 
the  Isthmus  to  take  charge  on  the  first  of  April. 

When  the  announcement  was  made  to  the  coun- 
try that  the  work  of  building  the  canal  was  to  be 
put  in  the  hands  of  the  Army,  the  whole  country 
began  to  inquire:  Who  is  Major  Goethals? 
that  inquiry  revealed  the  fact  that  he  was  a  man 
who  had  accomplished  much  in  his  49  years. 
Born  in  1858,  of  Dutch  parents,  whose  ancestors 


120  THE  PANAMA  CANAL 

had  settled  in  New  York  when  it  was  still  New 
Amsterdam,  he  was  appointed  to  the  United  States 
Military  Academy  at  West  Point  where  he  was 
graduated  in  the  class  of  1880  with  such  honors 
that  he  was  entitled  to  enter  the  Engineer  Corps 
of  the  Regular  Army. 

In  1891  he  rose  to  the  rank  of  captain,  and  in 
1898  became  lieutenant  colonel  and  chief  engineer 
of  the  First  Volunteer  Army  Corps  in  Cuba. 
On  the  last  day  of  that  year  he  was  honorably 
discharged  from  the  volunteer  service,  and,  in 
1900,  became  a  major  in  the  Engineer  Corps  of 
the  Regular  Army.  For  a  number  of  years  prior 
to  1898  he  had  been  instructor  in  civil  and  military 
engineering  at  West  Point.  He  had  been  in  charge 
of  the  Mussel  Shoals  canal  construction  on  the 
Tennessee  River,  a  work  which  won  praise  from 
engineers  both  in  civil  and  in  military  life.  It  was 
in  a  measure  his  record  made  on  the  Tennessee 
River  work  that  led  to  his  appointment  as  chairman 
and  chief  engineer  of  the  Isthmian  Canal. 

When  he  took  charge  of  the  work  at  Panama 
he  was  promoted  to  lieutenant  colonel.  Arriv- 
ing there  he  immediately  informed  all  hands  that 
while  the  work  of  building  the  canal  had  been 
placed  under  Army  engineers,  no  man  who  was 
then  on  the  job  and  faithfully  executing  his  work 
need  fear  anything  from  that  administration. 
From  that  time  down  to  the  last  stages  of  the  work 
that  statement  held  good.  Trained  at  West 
Point,  brought  up  in  the  atmosphere  of  the  Army, 
a  lover  of  its  traditions  and  in  full  sympathy 
with  its  spirit,  he  laid  aside  everything  that  might 
handicap  the  success  of  the  undertaking  and  sought 


THE  MAN  AT  THE  HELM  121 

at  once  to  get  the  full  benefit  of  all  that  was  best 
in  the  Army  and  in  civil  life  tis  well.  He  put  his 
uniform  in  moth  balls  when  he  started  to  the 
Isthmus,  and  from  that  day  to  this  no  man  has 
ever  seen  him  on  the  Canal  Zone  wearing  an  Army 
uniform. 

When  he  took  charge  of  the  big  job,  the  founda- 
tions upon  which  he  was  to  build  the  superstruc- 
ture of  his  success  had  been  laid  by  his  predecessors, 
but  there  were  many  weak  points  in  these  founda- 
tions as  well  as  many  strong  ones.  With  a  spirit 
of  utilizing  to  the  fullest  extent  every  advantage 
that  the  administrations  of  the  former  chief 
engineers  had  left  on  the  Isthmus,  he  undertook 
to  make  only  such  changes  as  time  demonstrated 
were  necessary  to  the  success  of  the  project. 
At  that  time  6,000,000  cubic  yards  of  material 
had  been  removed  from  the  big  waterway.  Con- 
fronting him  was  the  task  of  removing  some  215,- 
000,000  yards  the  while  building  a  great  dam 
containing  21,000,000  cubic  yards,  constructing  a 
series  of  gigantic  locks  containing  four  and  a  half 
million  cubic  yards  of  concrete,  and  providing 
for  the  happiness  and  welfare  of  the  sixty-odd 
thousand  people  who  constituted  the  canal  army 
and  its  camp  followers. 

In  the  years  that  followed  his  appointment  he 
proved  himself  in  every  way  worthy  of  his  as- 
signment as  the  managing  director  of  the  most 
stupendous  piece  of  work  ever  undertaken  by 
man.  Furthermore,  he  established'  a  claim  to 
the  title  of  the  "Great  Digger."  No  other  man 
in  the  history  of  the  world  has  ever  superintended 
the  excavation  of  an  amount  of  earth  half  as 


122  THE  PANAMA  CANAt 

great  as  that  which  has  been  taken  out  of  the 
Panama  Canal  during  his  administration.  Since 
he  went  to  the  canal  to  "make  the  dirt  fly"  the 
material  excavated  under  his  command,  together 
with  that  placed  in  the  locks  and  dams,  equals  the 
amount  necessary  to  take  out  to  cut  a  tunnel  13 
feet  square  through  the  earth  at  the  Equator. 

No  man  ever  carried  to  a  great  position  less 
fuss  and  feathers  than  Colonel  Goethals  took  to 
his  work  as  chairman  and  chief  engineer  of  the 
Panama  Canal.  When,  during  the  construction 
period,  one  visited  his  office  at  Culebra,  on  almost 
any  afternoon,  he  would  find  there  an  unpreten- 
tious little  room  in  the  corner  of  the  administra- 
tion building,  about  18  feet  square,  containing 
four  windows,  overlooking  the  cut  from  two  sides, 
its  painted  walls  hung  with  maps,  its  floors  un- 
carpeted,  and  in  the  center  a  large  double-sided, 
flat-top  desk  covered  with  papers.  A  swivel 
chair  at  the  desk  and  two  or  three  other  chairs 
constituted  the  furnishings  of  this  room.  The 
visitor  walked  directly  into  the  office  of  his 
private  secretary  and  the  chief  clerk,  and  if  he 
had  anything  worth  while  about  which  to  see  the 
chairman  and  chief  engineer  he  was  detained  only 
long  enough  for  the  man  ahead  of  him  to  get  out. 
With  "no  time  like  the  present"  as  his  motto  in 
handling  the  business  of  his  office,  he,  the  busiest 
man  on  the  Isthmus,  and  one  of  the  busiest 
in  the  world  for  that  matter,  always  seemed  to 
have  more  time  than  many  men  of  lesser  re- 
sponsibilities and  far  fewer  burdens.  He  once 
declared  that  he  had  a  contempt  for  the  man  who 
always  tried  to  make  it  appear  that  he  was  too 


THE  MAN  AT  THE  HELM  123 

busy  to  see  his  callers,  because  his  callers  were 
frequently  as  busy  as  he  himself. 

The  fact  is  that  he  is  a  man  with  a  very  unusual 
gift  in  the  dispatch  of  work.  System  has  been  the 
key-note  of  his  success.  With  thousands  of 
details  every  day  to  look  after,  he  has  always 
kept  his  work  so  well  in  hand  that  to  the  casual 
observer  he  seemed  to  be  the  most  leisurely  man 
on  the  Isthmus.  He  maintained  a  well-established 
routine  all  through  his  career  on  the  canal.  His 
mornings  usually  were  spent  going  over  the  work. 
When  the  morning  trains  passed  Culebra  at  7 
o'clock  they  found  him  up,  breakfasted,  and  at  the 
station. 

Although  these  trains  carried  parlor  cars,  one 
would  seldom  see  the  chairman  and  chief  engineer 
riding  in  them.  Rather,  he  consistently  chose  to 
ride  in  the  ordinary  day  coaches  with  his  sub- 
engineers,  with  the  steam-shovel  men,  and  with 
the  rank  and  file  of  the  Americans  who  made 
possible  the  success  of  the  work  at  Panama. 
There  were  few  of  these  Americans  whom  he  did 
not  know  by  name,  and  with  whom  he  did  not  pass 
a  pleasant  word  whenever  he  chanced  to  meet  them. 

A  morning  trip  over  the  work  with  this  pre- 
siding genius  of  the  big  ditch  reveals  perhaps  better 
than  anything  else  the  makeup  of  the  man  and 
the  secret  of  his  success. 

"  Meet  me  on  the  early  train  to-morrow  morning 
at  Miraflores,"  said  he  to  one  of  his  visitors  in 
the  early  summer  of  1913,  "and  we  will  go  over 
the  Pacific  end  of  the  work." 

This  meant  that  both  the  chief  engineer  and 
the  visitor  had  to  leave  comfortable  beds  at  5 


124  LTHE  PANAMA  CANAL 

o'clock  in  the  morning  to  keep  the  appointment. 
At  7  o'clock  they  met  at  Miraflores.  "We  will 
walk  through  the  tunnel  if  you  don't  mind,"  said 
he,  "as  I  don't  want  to  hold  up  a  dirt  train  if  it 
can  be  avoided." 

At  the  other  end  of  the  railroad  tunnel,  the 
only  one  on  the  Isthmus,  a  railway  motor  car  stood 
on  the  siding  ready  to  pick  up  the  distinguished 
engineer  and  carry  him  to  the  Miraflores  Locks. 
This  motor  car  is  something  like  a  limousine  on 
railroad  trucks,  and  was  affectionately  known  by 
the  people  on  the  Isthmus,  as  "the  yellow  peril" 
and  "the  brain  wagon."  The  first  stop  was  at 
the  concrete  work  on  the  spillway  dam  at  Mira- 
flores. 

"How  soon  do  you  expect  to  have  this  dam  up 
to  its  full  height?  "  he  asked  of  the  division  engineer 
who  joined  him  there.  "Can't  you  find  room 
to  operate  another  temporary  concrete  mixer 
down  there?"  he  queried  further.  "Is  there 
anything  else  you  need  to  keep  the  work  moving 
forward  so  as  to  be  certain  to  complete  the  dam 
by  the  time  you  promised?  " 

Going  a  little  farther  he  came  to  a  place  where 
one  division  was  doing  some  work  for  another 
division.  "Don't  you  think  it  would  be  more 
satisfactory  to  keep  both  parts  of  that  workjmder 
one  division?  Why  don't  you  allow  it  all  to  be 
done  by  the  other  people?" 

Walking  across  the  locks  on  the  temporary 
bridge  the  chief  engineer  and  his  assistant  came 
to  a  point  where  the  concrete  lamp  posts  for 
lighting  the  locks  were  being  set  up.  "Don't 
you  think  that  it  would  better  avoid  any  settling 


THE  MAN  AT  THE  HELM  125 

if  you  were  to  place  beams  of  railroad  iron  across 
those  spaces  and  rest  the  posts  on  them?"  he 
queried. 

A  little  farther  on  he  met  the  engineer  in  charge 
of  the  work  of  the  company  erecting  the  gates. 
"When  do  you  think  you  will  have  the  gates  in 
the  west  chambers  completed  so  that  we  can 
put  the  dredge  through?"  he  inquired  of  Mr. 
Wright. 

"Well,  sir,"  replied  Mr.  Wright,  "if  we  have 
good  luck  I  hope  to  have  them  done  by  the  first 
of  September;  if  we  have  fair  luck  we  ought  to 
have  them  completed  by  the  middle  of  September; 
but  at  the  lowest  calculation  I  can  promise  them 
to  you  by  the  first  of  October." 

"But  have  you  taken  into  consideration  all 
of  the  time  you  are  likely  to  lose  as  the  result  of 
heavy  rains?"  queried  the  chief  engineer. 

"I  have  made  full  allowance  therefor,  I  think," 
responded  Mr.  Wright. 

Walking  on,  the  watchful  eye  of  the  chiaf 
engineer  fell  upon  a  new  baby  railway  track  which 
was  being  laid  through  the  eastern  lock  chambers. 
"WThat  are  you  planning  to  do  there?"  he  asked 
of  the  division  engineer. 

"We  wanted  to  get  some  additional  material 
through  the  locks  and  Mr.  Wright  informed  us 
that  if  we  would  furnish  the  timbers,  he  would 
make  it  so  that  we  could  run  these  little  engines 
through  there,"  responded  the  engineer. 

"But  did  you  have  a  definite  understanding 
with  him  that  this  should  afford  no  excuse  for  any 
further  delay  in  completing  the  gates?"  queried 
Colonel  Goethals. 


126  THE  PANAMA  CANAL 

"We  did,  sir,"  responded  the  division  engineer. 

"All  right  then,  go  ahead." 

At  this  point  the  party  boarded  the  motor  car 
again  and  was  taken  to  the  big  dike  which  was  to 
hold  the  Pacific  Ocean  from  flooding  the  locks 
after  a  dike  a  mile  farther  down  had  been  blown 
out.  "  How  much  water  do  you  have  in  the  stretch 
between  the  two  dikes?"  he  asked  of  the  division 
engineer.  He  next  wanted  to  know  how  many 
million  cubic  feet  they  were  able  to  pump  and 
siphon  in,  and  how  much  the  Rio  Grande  was 
bringing  in  per  day.  Then  he  wanted  to  know  if 
every  possible  precaution  had  been  taken  to  insure 
the  watertightness  of  the  new  dike;  how  many 
thousand  pounds  of  dynamite  had  been  placed 
under  the  one  to  be  blown  up;  how  many  holes 
this  dynamite  was  placed  in;  and  a  large  number 
of  other  bits  of  information  which  would  tell 
him  whether  every  safeguard  had  been  thrown 
around  the  plan  to  insure  its  success. 

Going  up  on  the  other  side  of  the  canal  the 
party  came  to  the  earth  dam  joining  the  west 
lock  walls  with  the  hills,  so  as  to  impound  58 
feet  of  water  in  Miraflores  Lake.  "How  soon  do 
you  expect  to  get  that  connection  made  between 
the  lock  walls  and  the  dam  proper?"  he  queried 
of  the  engineer  in  immediate  charge. 

"In  four  weeks,  sir." 

"All  right,"  answered  Colonel  Goethals,  "you 
can't  get  that  done  any  too  soon  to  suit  me." 

And  so  he  went  over  the  work  around  Miraflores 
from  beginning  to  end,  talking  now  with  an  Irish- 
man in  charge  of  dumping  the  material  on  the 
inside  of  the  dam,  now  with  a  man  in  charge  of  some 


THE  MAN  AT  THE  HELM  127 

concrete  work,  and  now  with  the  division  engineer 
himself.  By  11  o'clock  he  had  inspected  every 
part  of  this  division  and  was  ready  to  take  his 
car  back  to  Culebra.  In  four  hours  he  had  seen 
every  man  responsible  for  any  important  work 
around  Miraflores;  had  offered  a  suggestion  there, 
a  word  of  encouragement  here,  and  had  obtained 
a  bit  of  information  at  another  place. 

Each  day's  morning  program  was  like  this  one 
except  as  to  the  place  he  visited  and  the  people 
with  whom  he  talked.  One  morning  he  might  be 
tramping  over  Cucaracha  Slide,  studying  the 
prospects  of  its  future.  Another  morning  he 
might  be  down  at  Gatun  watching  an  official 
test  of  an  emergency  dam.  On  these  trips  he 
usually  wore  either  a  most  unmilitary-looking 
blue  serge  or  gray  cheviot,  with  a  somewhat 
weather-beaten  sailor  straw  hat,  and  carried  a 
cheap  dollar  umbrella. 

When  Colonel  Goethals  went  to  the  Isthmus 
he  promised  that  every  man  with  a  grievance 
should  have  a  hearing.  Each  Sunday  morning 
he  had  at  his  office  at  Culebra  what  he  termed  his 
Sunday  "at  homes,"  the  best  attended  functions 
on  the  Isthmus,  where  the  blackest  Jamaica 
negro  on  the  job  found  as  much  of  a  welcome  as 
the  highest  official.  These  functions  were  for 
the  purpose  of  hearing  the  canal  employees  who 
had  grievances.  Once  a  visitor  was  congratulat- 
ing him  upon  the  smooth  manner  in  which  the 
canal-building  machine  seemed  to  be  working. 
"You  ought  tD  attend  one  of  my  Sunday  'at 
homes,'"  he  replied.  "You  would  think  that 
there  was  no  smoothness  at  all  to  its  running." 


128  THE  PANAMA  CANAL 

i 

A 

Here  is  the  wife  of  one  of  the  engineers:  She 
wants  to  find  out  why  it  is  that  she  cannot  get 
bread  from  the  Ancon  Hospital  bakery.  She 
informs  Colonel  Goethals  that  Joseph  B.  Bishop, 
secretary  of  the  commission,  gets  bread  from  the 
hospital  bakery  and  wants  to  know  why  she  can- 
not. "  I  will  look  into  the  matter  for  you,"  says  the 
chief  engineer,  and  a  note  of  this  complaint  is  made. 
Later  the  telephone  bell  rings  and  Mr.  Bishop  is 
asked  if  he  gets  bread  at  the  hospital  bakery.  He 
replies  in  the  affirmative,  explaining  that  about 
three  years  ago  he  had  breakfasted  with  Colonel 
Gorgas  who  arranged  for  him  to  buy  his  bread 
there  instead  of  at  the  commissary,  this  bread  being 
more  to  his  liking.  "Can't  any  other  employee 
of  the  Canal  Commission  get  bread  there  under 
the  same  terms?"  queries  the  chief  engineer. 
"I  will  see,  sir,"  responds  the  secretary  of  the 
commission.  "If  they  can  not,"  answers  the 
chief  engineer,  "you  must  have  your  bread  stopped 
at  once."  And  it  was  stopped. 

The  next  person  received  is  the  representative 
of  the  Kangaroos,  a  fraternal  order.  "  The  Spanish 
American  War  veterans  get  free  transportation  on 
a  special  train  on  Memorial  Day,"  he  is  informed, 
"and  the  fraternal  orders  on  the  Zone  are  crowded 
out,"  "Let  a  committee  of  all  the  fraternal  orders 
appear  next  Sunday  and  talk  it  over  with  me  and  we 
will  seewhatwe  can  do,  "responds  the  chief  engineer. 

Here  comes  a  negro  who  says  that  his  boss  is  a 
tyrant  and  abuses  his  men:  "I  will  look  into 
that,"  responds  the  presiding  genius  of  the  canal, 
and  the  Jamaican  goes  away  with  an  expansive 
smile  on  his  face. 


THE  MAN  AT  THE  HELM  129 

And  so  it  went.  Small  affairs,  big  affairs,  and 
indifferent  ones  were  brought  to  his  attention. 
In  perhaps  80  per  cent  of  them  he  could  not  do 
what  was  requested,  but  when  able  he  did  it  so 
promptly,  and  in  such  a  positive,  straightforward 
mariner,  that  his  "at  homes"  have  been  compared, 
by  the  French  ambassador  to  the  United  States, 
to  the  court  of  justice  held  by  Saint  Louis  be- 
neath the  oak  at  Vincennes. 

A  railroad  engineer  on  one  of  the  dirt  trains  got 
drunk  and  ran  over  a  negro  He  was  sent  to  the 
penitentiary.  The  railroad  nen  issued  an  ulti- 
matum saying  that  if  he  were  not  released  by  a  cer- 
tain hour  on  a  certain  day,  every  dirt  train  on  the 
canal  would  stop.  A  committee  conveyed  this 
ultimatum  to  Colonel  Goethals  and  asked  his 
decision.  'You  will  get  it  at  the  penitentiary," 
he  replied.  "This  man  will  remain  in  prison  and 
every  man  who  quits  work  on  that  account  will 
be  dropped  from  the  rolls.  There  was  no  strike 
of  engineers. 

At  another  time  the  waiters  at  the  Tivoli  Hotel 
went  on  strike.  The  whole  force  was  promptly 
discharged,  and  the  official  paper  of  the  Canal 
Commission  carried  their  names  with  the  announce- 
ment that  thereafter  they  would  not  be  eligible 
to  employment  in  any  capacity  on  the  Canal  Zone. 

If  the  chairman  and  chief  engineer  of  the  canal 
is  just  and  firm  in  his  relations  with  his  men,  he  is 
no  less  generous  in  giving  credit  where  credit  be- 
longs. Upon  one  occasion  he  was  talking  about 
the  success  of  the  canal  project  with  a  friend,  and 
declared  that  the  world  would  never  give  to  John 
F.  Stevens  the  ^credit  that  was  due  him  in  the 


130  THE  PANAMA  CANAL 

construction  of  the  canal.  "You  know,"  said  he, 
"the  real  problem  of  building  this  canal  has  been 
that  of  removing  the  spoil;  that  problem  was 
preeminently  the  problem  of  a  railroad  man  and 
to  solve  it  demanded  the  services  of  one  of  the 
best  men  in  the  railroad  business.  We  have 
extended  the  facilities  laid  out  by  Mr.  Stevens, 
and  have  modified  them  as  experience  and  condi- 
tions have  demanded,  but  they  have  been  operated 
from  that  day  to  this  under  the  general  plan  of 
transportation  laid  out  by  Mr.  Stevens.  I  do  not 
think  that  any  Army  engineer  in  the  United  States 
could  have  laid  out  such  excellent  transportation 
facilities." 

At  another  time,  in  discussing  this  same  matter, 
he  declared  that  it  was  his  firm  opinion  that  the 
canal  could  have  been  built  by  either  of  the  former 
chief  engineers,  John  F.  Wallace  or  John  F. 
Stevens,  if  they  had  been  allowed  a  free  hand. 
"You  see,"  said  he,  "they  were  men  who  were 
accustomed  to  handling  big  construction  jobs. 
They  would  outline  their  project  and  the  cost  of 
executing  it  to  a  board  of  directors  who  would 
pass  upon  it  and  then  leave  them  absolutely 
unhampered  in  the  matter  of  personnel  and  method, 
with  results  as  the  only  criterion  of  their  success. 
When  they  came  to  the  Isthmus  they  found  their 
hands  tied  by  red  tape.  They  had  never  dealt 
with  a  President,  a  Secretary  of  War,  a  Congress, 
and  the  public  at  large.  Naturally,  they  grew 
restive  under  the  conditions  which  confronted  them 
and  resigned. 

"The  whole  difference  is  largely  that  of  training. 
The  Army  officer  knows  from  the  time  he  leaves 


THE  MAN  AT  THE  HELM  131 

West  Point  that  he  has  to  work  in  harmony  with 
his  superiors,  with  the  President,  the  Secretary 
of  War,  and  Congress.  That  is  why  we  have  been 
able  to  stay  where  men  from  civil  life  have  thrown 
up  the  job." 

Another  remarkable  characteristic  of  the  Great 
Digger  is  his  desire  to  do  his  work  economically 
as  well  as  to  do  it  promptly.  When  he  went  to 
the  Isthmus  there  was  an  insistent  demand  that 
the  dirt  be  made  to  fly.  Along  with  the  adminis- 
tration in  Washington  he  realized  that  the  only 
way  to  gain  the  faith  and  confidence  of  the  people 
in  the  work,  a  faith  and  confidence  essential  to 
its  full  success,  was  to  measure  up  to  their  desire 
that  the  dirt  begin  to  fly.  It  was  not  a  time  to 
consider  economies  then.  But,  as  soon  as  those 
demands  had  been  met  and  the  people  had  been 
shown  that  the  Army  could  make  good,  a  cost- 
keeping  system  was  introduced.  Men  doing  iden- 
tical work  were  pitted  against  one  another;  Army 
engineers  were  placed  in  command  of  one  task  here 
and  civilian  engineers  in  command  of  another  task 
there;  and  thus  a  healthy  rivalry  was  established. 

As  the  late  Colonel  Gaillard,  of  the  commission, 
and  engineer  of  the  Central  Division,  testified 
before  a  congressional  committee,  his  early  work 
in  Culebra  Cut  was  to  get  out  as  much  dirt  as 
possible,  while  his  later  work  was  given  over  largely 
to  a  study  and  comparison  of  cost  sheets  with  a 
view  to  cutting  down  the  expense  of  removing  a 
yard  of  material,  with  the  result  that  he  was  able  to 
show  a  saving  of  $17,000,000  in  a  9-mile  section 
of  the  Panama  Canal  as  compared  with  the  esti- 
mates of  1908. 


132  THE  PANAMA  CANAL 

In  btlier  words,  Colonel  Goethals  took  that 
gDlden  rule  of  all  great  soldiers,  "get  there  first 
\\ith  the  most  men,"  and  adapted  it  to  read  "dig 
the  most  dirt  with  the  least  money."  He  had 
ever  in  mind  three  things:  Safe  construction, 
rapid  progress,  and  low  costs.  On  these  three 
foundation  stones  in  his  mind  was  reared  the 
structure  that  stands  as  the  highest  example  of 
engineering  science,  and  as  the  proudest  construct- 
ive accomplishment  of  the  American  Republic. 

At  the  northern  entrance  to  the  Suez  Canal 
stands  a  statue  of  de  Lesseps,  a  beckoning  hand 
inviting  the  shipping  of  the  world  to  go  through. 
Perhaps  no  such  statue  of  Goethals  ever  will  stand 
at  Panama,  but  there  is  no  need.  The  canal 
itself  is  his  monument  and  its  story  will  ever  endure. 


CHAPTER  XI 

THE   ORGANIZATION 

WHEN  the  United  States  finally  decided  to 
build  the  Panama  Canal,  the  next  ques- 
tion of  gravity  which  pressed  for  consid- 
eration was  the  creation  of  the  organization  by 
which  it  was  to  be  built.     Many  problems  were  en- 
countered, and  after  repeated  changes  in  personnel 
and  rearrangements  of  duties,  the  situation  finally 
resolved  into  an  organization  headed  by  one  man, 
clothed  with  the  necessary  powers,  and  held  re- 
sponsible for  the  consequent  results. 

The  completion  of  the  preliminaries  for  the 
acquisition  of  title  to  the  Canal  Zone  and  to  the 
property  and  rights  of  the  New  Panama  Canal 
Company  took  place  when  Congress,  on  April 
28,  1904,  made  an  appropriation  of  $10,000,000, 
which  was  to  be  paid  to  the  Republic  of  Panama. 
Six  days  later  the  United  States  formally  took 
possession  of  the  Canal  Zone  and  of  the  property 
of  the  Panama  Canal  Company,  when  at  7:30 
o'clock  in  the  morning,  Lieut.  Mark  Brooke,  of  the 
United  States  Army,  took  over  the  keys  and  raised 
the  American  flag.  The  following  day  President 
Roosevelt  announced  the  appointment  of  John 
Findley  Wallace,  of  Massachusetts,  as  chief  engi- 
neer of  the  canal  at  a  salary  of  $25,000  a  year,  the 
appointment  to  be  effective  on  the  1st  day  of  June. 

133 


134  THE  PANAMA  CANAL 

The  first  ship  to  arrive  at  Panama  carried  Maj. 
Gen.  George  W.  Davis,  who  was  to  govern  the 
Canal  Zone;  Col.  William  C.  Gorgas,  who  was  to 
make  it  sanitary;  and  George  R.  Shanton,  who 
was  to  drive  out  the  criminal  element.  Governor 
Davis  was  a  member  of  the  Isthmian  Canal 
Commission,  Colonel  Gorgas  had  proved  his  worth 
in  the  sanitation  of  Cuba,  and  Shanton  had  been 
a  "rough  rider"  with  Colonel  Roosevelt  in  the 
Cuban  campaign. 

When  Chief  Engineer  Wallace  arrived  on  the 
scene  he  found  there  an  all  but  abandoned  proj- 
ect. There  were  hundreds  of  French  houses, 
but  nearly  all  of  them  were  in  the  jungle  and  prac- 
tically unfit  for  human  habitation.  He  found 
millions  of  dollars'  worth  of  French  machinery, 
but  almost  none  of  it  in  condition  to  be  put  into 
service  immediately.  He  knew  in  a  general  way 
the  line  of  the  canal,  but  surveys  were  lacking  to 
determine  its  exact  location  at  every  point.  With 
this  situation  in  front  of  him,  he  found  it  necessary 
to  concentrate  his  efforts  upon  the  problem  of 
getting  ready  for  the  work.  While  he  was  doing 
this  the  people  at  home  began  to  demand  that  the 
dirt  fly.  Colonel  Gorgas  also  found  conditions 
which  challenged  his  best  efforts.  Colon  was  a 
paradise  of  disease,  Panama  was  no  better.  It 
was  only  by  making  both  of  these  cities  over  again, 
from  a  sanitary  standpoint,  that  any  hope  could 
be  held  out  for  reasonably  healthy  conditions. 

During  his  stay  on  the  Isthmus  Mr.  Wallace 
found  himself  handicapped  at  every  turn  by  red 
tape,  a  new  thing  in  his  experience  as  a  construc- 
tion engineer.  He  could  buy  nothing  without 


THE  ORGANIZATION  135 

asking  for  bids;  every  idea  he  sought  to  put  into 
execution  had  to  be  submitted  to  Washington, 
and  he  found  himself  so  harassed  and  handicapped 
that  he  wanted  a  new  plan  of  organization. 

Acting  in  accordance  with  his  recommendations, 
President  Roosevelt  decided  to  accept  the  resigna- 
tion of  the  existing  Canal  Commission,  and  to 
appoint  a  new  one,  in  which,  instead  of  having 
independent  departments,  with  the  governor  inde- 
pendent of  the  chief  engineer,  and  the  chief  sani- 
tary officer  independent  of  both  the  governor  and 
the  chief  engineer,  there  should  be  a  more  united 
relation,  in  which  all  questions  were  to  be  decided 
by  the  commission  as  a  whole,  the  final  authority 
being  vested  in  an  executive  committee  composed 
of  the  chairman,  the  governor  of  the  Canal  Zone, 
and  the  chief  engineer. 

Under  this  plan,  the  second  Isthmian  Canal 
Commission  was  organized.  It  consisted  of  Theo- 
dore P.  Shonts,  chairman;  Charles  E.  Magoon, 
Governor  of  the  Canal  Zone;  John  F.  Wallace, 
chief  engineer;  Mordecai  T.  Endicott;  Peter  C. 
Hains;  Oswald  H.  Ernst;  and  Benjamin  A. 
Harrod.  Following  the  suggestion  of  Chief  En- 
gineer Wallace,  the  control  of  the  Panama  Rail- 
road was  also  vested  in  the  new  commission. 

While  these  changes  were  being  made  Chief 
Engineer  Wallace  was  in  Washington.  There  was 
dissatisfaction  on  the  Isthmus  with  an  accompany  T 
ing  spirit  of  unrest,  and,  to  make  matters  worse,  a 
yellow-fever  epidemic  broke  out.  Only  a  few 
days  after  Mr.  Wallace  reached  the  Isthmus,  he 
cabled  the  Secretary  of  War  that  he  wished  to 
return  to  Washington,  hinting  that  he  might  re- 


136  THE  PANAMA  CANAL 

sign.  Secretary  Taft  cabled  to  Governor  Magoon 
for  an  opinion  as  to  the  motives  which  were  behind 
this  step  on  the  part  of  Mr.  Wallace,  and  was 
advised  that  it  was  brought  about  by  the  offer  of 
a  better  salary  and  the  fear  of  the  yellow-fever 
epidemic.  When  Mr.  Wallace  reached  New  York 
he  had  a  stormy  interview  with  Secretary  Taft, 
who  roundly  denounced  him  for  quitting  at  such  a 
critical  time.  Mr.  Wallace  declared  his  lack  of 
confidence  in  the  ability  of  Colonel  Gorgas  to 
control  the  yellow-fever  epidemic,  and  asserted 
that  the  continual  interference  of  red  tape  was  so 
distracting  to  him  as  to  make  new  employment 
attractive.  President  Roosevelt  upheld  his  Secre- 
tary of  War  in  his  denunciation  of  Mr.  Wallace, 
and  promptly  appointed  John  F.  Stevens  chief 
engineer  at  a  salary  of  $30,000. 

John  F.  Stevens  arrived  on  the  Isthmus  on  July 
£7,  1905.  He  found  the  Panama  Railroad  al- 
most in  a  state  of  collapse.  He  declared  that  the 
only  claim  heard  for  it  was  that  there  had  been 
no  collisions  for  some  time.  "A  collision  has  its 
good  points  as  well  as  its  bad  ones,"  he  observed, 
"for  it  indicates  that  there  is  something  moving 
on  the  railroad." 

Mr.  Stevens  immediately  set  to  work  to  build 
up  the  road,  and  to  provide  the  means  for  housing 
and  feeding  the  canal  army.  But  like  his  pred- 
ecessor he  found  Government  red  tape  hamper- 
ing, and  in  his  first  annual  report  begged  for  "a 
thorough  business  administration  unhampered  by 
any  tendency  to  technicalities,  into  which  our 
public  work  sometimes  drifts."  He  protested 
against  civil-service  requirements  on  the  Isthmus, 


THE  ORGANIZATION  13? 

and  against  the  eight-hour  working  day;  and 
President  Roosevelt  met  his  protests  by  exempt- 
ing all  employees  except  clerks  from  the  operations 
of  civil-service  rules,  and  by  abrogating  the  eight- 
hour  day. 

It  was  under  the  regime  of  Mr.  Stevens  that  the 
question  arose  as  to  whether  the  canal  should  be 
built  as  a  sea-level  channel  through  the  Isthmus, 
or  as  a  lock  canal  with  the  water  in  the  middle 
section  85  feet  above  the  level  of  the  sea.  Presi- 
dent Roosevelt  thereupon  appointed  a  board  of 
consulting  engineers,  made  up  of  14  members,  to 
visit  the  Isthmus  and  determine  what  type  of 
canal  should  be  built.  Five  members  of  this 
board  of  consulting  engineers  were  foreigners 
appointed  by  their  respective  Governments  at 
the  request  of  President  Roosevelt.  They  in- 
cluded the  inspector  general  of  Public  Works  of 
France,  the  consulting  engineer  of  the  Suez  Canal, 
the  chief  engineer  of  the  Manchester  Canal,  the 
chief  engineer  of  the  Kiel  Canal,  and  the  chief 
engineer  of  the  Dutch  dike  system.  Three  of  the 
American  engineers  and  all  five  of  the  foreign 
engineers  voted  in  favor  of  a  sea-level  canal. 
Chief  Engineer  Stevens  and  all  but  one  member  of 
the  Isthmian  Canal  Commission  concurred  in  the 
vote  of  the  minority,  made  up  wholly  of  American 
engineers  in  favor  of  the  lock  canal.  President 
Roosevelt  sustained  the  minority  report,  and 
Congress  sustained  him  in  the  law  of  June  29, 1906. 

In  the  fall  of  1906  Chairman  Shonts  came  out 
in  advocacy  of  a  plan  to  build  the  canal  by  con- 
tract. Here  arose  a  difference  between  Mr. 
Shonts  and  Mr,  Stevens,  and  Chairman  Shonts 


138  THE  PANAMA  CANAL 

shortly  thereafter  resigned.  A  few  months  later 
Chief  Engineer  Stevens  also  resigned.  It  is  said 
that  his  resignation  was  mainly  due  to  his  objection 
to  the  appointment  of  Army  engineers  as  members 
of  the  Canal  Commission,  and  to  a  letter  he  wrote 
the  President  in  which  he  scored  the  limitations 
of  red  tape  and  Government  methods  generally. 
When  Mr.  Stevens  quitted  the  Isthmus  he  left 
behind  him  the  nucleus  of  the  general  organization 
for  building  of  the  canal.  He  saw  housing  con- 
ditions brought  up  to  the  required  standard, 
established  the  necessary  commissary  where  canal 
employees  could  supply  their  needs  at  reasonable 
prices,  and  aided  Colonel  Gorgas  in  his  fight  to 
make  the  Isthmus  healthful. 

At  this  juncture  the  organization  destined  to 
build  the  canal  was  put  into  effect,  with  Colonel 
George  W.  Goethals  at  its  head.  Colonel  Gorgas, 
the  chief  sanitary  officer,  was  the  only  important 
official  of  the  old  regime  held  over.  The  other 
members  of  the  commission  were  Maj.  D.  D. 
Gaillard  and  Maj.  William  L.  Sibert,  of  the  United 
States  Engineer  Corps;  Civil  Engineer  H.  H. 
Rousseau,  of  the  United  States  Navy;  and  Messrs. 
J.  C.  S.  Blackburn  and  Jackson  Smith. 

Under  former  commissions  the  Governor  of  the 
Canal  Zone  had  ranked  above  the  chief  engineer, 
and  the  chairman,  the  chief  engineer,  and  the 
governor  had  had  rival  powers,  which  resulted  in  a 
great  deal  of  friction.  Under  the  new  order  the 
offices  of  chairman  and  chief  engineer  were  con- 
solidated, and  the  governor  was  reduced  to  the 
title  of  "head  of  the  Department  of  Civil  Adminis- 
tration," reporting  to  the  chairman,  as,  did  the 


MAJ.    GEN.    GEORGE    W.    DAVIS  REAR   ADMIRAL  J.    G.    WALKER 


JOHN    F.    STEVENS 


CHARLES    E.    MAGOOX 


RICHARD    LEE   METCALFE 


EMORY    R.    JOHNSON 


MAURICE   H.    THATCHER 


JOSEPH    BUCKLIN    BISHOP 


H.    A.    GUDGER 


JOSEPH    C.    S.    BLACKBURN 


THE  ORGANIZATION  139 

chief  sanitary  officer  and  all  of  the  division  en- 
gineers. 

This  commission,  in  personnel,  remained  intact 
during  the  long  period  of  construction,  except  for 
the  resignation  in  1908  of  Jackson  Smith,  who  was 
succeeded  by  Lieut.  Col.  Harry  F.  Hodges;  and  for 
the  resignation  in  1910  of  Mr.  Blackburn,  who  was 
succeeded  by  Morris  H.  Thatcher.  Mr.  Thatcher, 
in  turn,  was  succeeded  in  1913  by  Richard  L. 
Metcalfe  as  head  of  the  Department  of  Civil  Ad- 
ministration. 

During  the  construction  period  there  were 
several  rearrangements  of  the  duties  of  the  Army 
engineers  associated  with  Colonel  Goethals.  From 
June,  1908,  Major  Gaillard,  afterwards  promoted 
to  a  lieutenant-colonelcy,  was  in  charge  of  the 
ditch-digging  work  between  Gatun  and  Pedro 
Miguel,  which  included  the  entire  Gatun  Lake 
and  Culebra  Cut  sections.  It  is  everywhere 
admitted  that  so  far  as  difficulties  were  concerned, 
he  had  the  hardest  job  on  the  Isthmus,  next  to 
the  chief  engineer.  Colonel  Gaillard  entered  the 
United  States  Military  Academy  in  1884  and  was 
graduated  with  honors  entitling  him  to  appoint- 
ment in  the  Corps  of  Engineers.  Before  being 
selected  as  a  member  of  the  Canal  Commission, 
he  had  had  much  experience  in  important  work. 
For  two  years  he  was  in  charge  of  all  river  and 
harbor  improvement  in  the  Lake  Superior  region. 
When  he  first  went  to  the  Isthmus  he  was  assigned 
as  the  supervising  engineer  in  charge  of  harbors, 
the  building  of  breakwaters,  etc. 

Lieut.  Col.  William  L.  Sibert,  another  of  the 
Army  engineers  who  was  made  a  member  of  the 


140  THE  PANAMA  CANAL 

Canal  Commission,  was  graduated  from  West 
Point  in  1884  and  was  made  a  lieutenant  of 
engineers.  From  1892  to  1894  he  was  assistant 
engineer  in  charge  of  the  construction  of  the  ship 
channel  connecting  the  Great  Lakes.  The  four 
years  following  he  was  in  charge  of  the  river  and 
harbor  work  in  Arkansas,  and  following  that, 
spent  one  year  teaching  civil  engineering  in  the 
Engineering  School  of  Application.  He  then 
went  to  the  Philippines  as  chief  engineer  of  the 
Eighth  Army  Corps  and  became  chief  engineer 
and  general  manager  of  the  Manila  &  Dagupan 
Railroad.  From  1900  to  1907  he  was  in  charge  of 
the  Ohio  River  improvements  between  Pittsburgh 
and  Louisville.  As  division  engineer  of  the  At- 
lantic division  of  the  Panama  Canal  he  was  in 
charge  of  the  construction  of  the  Gatun  locks, 
Gatun  Dam,  and  the  breakwaters  at  the  Atlantic 
entrance  to  the  canal. 

Civil  Engineer  Harry  H.  Rousseau,  of  the 
United  States  Navy,  was  appointed  a  member  of 
the  Isthmian  Canal  Commission  at  the  same  time 
that  Chief  Engineer  Goethals  was  selected  to  head 
the  organization.  He  had  had  much  experience 
in  engineering  work  prior  to  the  appointment  and 
was  a  personal  appointee  of  President  Roosevelt, 
with  whom  he  had  come  in  contact  when  he  was 
serving  in  the  Bureau  of  Yards  and  Docks  of  the 
Navy  Department  when  Mr.  Roosevelt  was 
assistant  secretary  of  that  Department.  He  en- 
tered the  employ  of  the  United  States  through  the 
civil  service,  having  been  appointed  a  civil  engi- 
neer in  the  Navy  with  the  rank  of  lieutenant,  after 
a  competitive  examination  in  1898.  For  four 


THE  ORGANIZATION  HI 

years  he  was  an  engineer  of  the  bureau  of  which  he 
afterwards  became  chief,  and  for  four  years  follow- 
ing, from  1903  to  1907,  he  was  engineer  of  the 
improvements  of  Mare  Island  Navy  Yard,  Cali- 
fornia. The  duties  of  Commissioner  Rousseau 
were  changed  from  time  to  time,  and  he  was 
finally  given  charge  of  the  work  of  constructing 
the  terminals  at  the  ends  of  the  canal.  At  the 
same  time  he  was  made  assistant  to  the  chief 
engineer,  having  charge  of  all  mechanical  questions 
arising  on  the  canal. 

When  Jackson  Smith,  one  of  the  two  civilian 
members  of  the  Canal  Commission,  resigned,  he 
was  succeeded  by  an  Army  officer,  Col.  Harry  F. 
Hodges,  who  would  have  been  a  member  of  the 
commission  from  the  first,  upon  the  request  of 
Colonel  Goethals,  had  not  the  United  States 
Engineer  Corps  required  his  services.  Colonel 
Hodges  was  graduated  from  the  United  States 
Military  Academy  in  1881,  and  immediately 
entered  upon  seven  years  of  duty  on  river  and 
harbor  improvements  in  the  United  States.  This 
was  followed  by  four  years'  service  as  assistant 
professor  of  engineering  at  West  Point,  and  that 
duty,  in  turn,  by  six  years  of  work  on  rivers  and 
harbors  and  fortifications.  During  the  Spanish 
American  War  he  served  in  Porto  Rico,  and  then 
returned  to  river  and  harbor  duty  for  two  years. 
In  1901-02  he  was  chief  engineer  of  the  Department 
of  Cuba,  from  which  duty  he  was  transferred  to 
the  War  Department,  where  he  became  assistant 
to  the  chief  of  engineers.  His  experience  in  river 
and  harbor  work,  coupled  with  his  success  as  the 
designer  of  the  locks  of  the  American  Sault  Ste. 


142  THE  PANAMA  CANAL 

Marie  Canal,  fitted  him  for  the  work  at  Panama. 
He  became  assistant  chief  engineer  and  purchasing 
agent  of  the  canal  in  1907,  and  the  following  year 
was  chosen  a  member  of  the  commission  to  suc- 
ceed Mr.  Smith.  The  work  of  designing  the  locks 
and  the  lock  machinery  fell  upon  his  shoulders. 

When  President  Roosevelt  wanted  a  man  to 
handle  the  delicate  problems  arising  out  of  the 
peculiar  relations  with  the  Republic  of  Panama 
and  the  United  States,  he  selected  Joseph  C.  S. 
Blackburn,  of  Kentucky,  who  had  just  finished  a 
long  term  of  service  in  the  United  States  Senate. 
Senator  Blackburn  was  well  equipped  for  such  a 
position,  combining  that  suavity  indicated  by  the 
velvet  glove  with  that  determination  of  purpose 
which  lies  in  the  iron  hand. 

The  service  of  Col.  William  C.  Gorgas,  the  chief 
sanitary  officer  on  the  Isthmus,  began  earlier  than 
that  of  any  of  the  higher  officials.  He  went  to  the 
Isthmus  immediately  after  it  was  taken  over  by 
the  United  States.  He  has  been  described  as  a 
man  "with  a  gentle  manner,  but  with  a  hard 
policy  toward  the  mosquito."  He  was  born  in 
Mobile,  Ala.,  in  1854,  the  son  of  Gen.  Josiah 
Gorgas,  of  the  Confederate  Army.  He  became  a 
member  of  the  Medical  Corps  of  the  United  States 
Army  in  1880,  and  since  his  work  at  the  head  of 
the  Cuban  health  campaign  his  name  has  been  a 
household  word  in  the  United  States. 

In  establishing  the  Isthmian  Canal  Commission, 
which  was  destined  to  make  the  Panama  Canal  a 
reality,  President  Roosevelt  selected  Joseph  Buck- 
lin  Bishop  as  its  secretary.  Mr.  Bishop  was  made 
the  editor  of  the  Canal  Record,  a  weekly  paper 


THE  ORGANIZATION  143 

which  was  the  official  organ  of  the  Canal  Com- 
mission. He  is  a  born  investigator  and  when  any 
matter  arose  concerning  the  work  on  the  canal, 
about  which  the  chief  engineer  desired  an  im- 
partial report,  he  usually  referred  it  to  Mr.  Bishop. 

When  the  matter  of  organizing  the  wrork  arose 
it  was  decided  to  arouse  a  spirit  of  emulation  and 
rivalry,  and  S.  B.  Williamson,  a  civilian  engineer, 
was  put  in  charge  of  the  Pacific  end  of  the  canal, 
with  duties  similar  to  those  of  the  Army  engineer 
on  the  Atlantic  side.  Mr.  Williamson  proved 
to  be  a  master  of  the  art  of  accomplishing  a  great 
deal  with  a  given  amount  of  money,  and  the  cost 
sheets  of  the  Pacific  end  will  ever  stand  as  a  monu- 
ment to  his  efficiency. 

The  list  of  engineers  and  other  officials  who 
contributed  to  the  success  of  the  work  at  Panama 
is  a  long  one,  but  among  them  may  be  mentioned: 
Col.  Chester  Harding,  who  was  the  resident  engi- 
neer at  Gatun;  W.  G.  Comber,  who  headed  the 
dredging  work  on  the  Pacific  end  of  the  canal  dur- 
ing the  early  days  of  the  American  undertaking, 
of  the  entire  canal  during  the  final  stages;  W.  G. 
Rourke,  who  was  resident  engineer  in  Culebra 
Cut  for  a  number  of  years;  Caleb  M.  Saville,  who 
worked  out  the  data  for  the  construction  of  the 
Gatun  Dam;  H.  O.  Cole,  who  succeeded  S.  B. 
Williamson  on  the  Pacific  end  work;  Lieut.  Fred- 
erick Mears,  who  relocated  the  Panama  Railroad; 
John  Burke,  who  had  charge  of  the  commissary; 
Maj.  Eugene  T.  Wilson,  the  chief  subsistence 
officer;  Brig.  Gen.  C.  A.  Devol,  who  was  in  charge 
of  the  quartermaster's  department;  E.  J.  Wil- 
liams, Jr.,  the  disbursing  officer;  and  Col.  Tom 


144  THE  PANAMA  CANAL 

P.  Cook,  the  picturesque  chief  of  the  Division  of 
Posts  and  Customs. 

To  all  these,  and  to  scores  of  others  who  are  not 
mentioned  here  merely  because  of  the  limitations 
of  space,  the  American  people  owe  the  great  suc- 
cess at  Panama.  The  organization  was  imbued 
with  a  spirit  of  loyalty  to  the  great  tnsk,  and 
having  its  accomplishment  singly  in  mind  there 
was  little  room  for  jealous  bickerings  and  none  at 
all  for  scandal  and  corruption. 

Every  man  who  had  a  part  in  it  always  will  be 
proud  of  his  share,  and  that  pride  will  be  sup- 
ported and  justified  by  all  Americans. 


CHAPTER  XH 

THE  AMERICAN   WORKERS 

THE  directory,  supervisory,  and  mechanical 
work  in  constructing  the  canal  was  done 
by  Americans.  The  engineers,  the  fore- 
men, the  steam  shovelers,  the  operators  of  spoil 
trains,  the  concrete  mixers,  and,  in  short,  the 
skilled  workers  were  American  citizens;  the  com- 
mon and  unskilled  laborers  were  West  Indians 
and  Europeans.  It  is  to  the  American  workers 
therefore  that  the  credit  is  due,  for  without  their 
direction  and  aid  in  every  operation  the  work 
could  not  have  been  done. 

Never  was  there  a  more  loyal,  a  more  earnest, 
a  more  enthusiastic  band  of  workmen  than  these 
same  Americans.  The  steam  shoveler  felt  as 
much  pride,  as  much  responsibility,  in  the  task 
as  did  the  chief  engineer. 

The  difficulties  under  which  they  labored,  the 
enervating  climate,  the  absence  from  home,  the 
lack  of  diversion  and  recreation,  but  served  to 
temper  the  steel  in  their  make-up.  The  American 
spirit  was  there,  dominating  every  detail  of  the 
whole  big  job.  Every  man  was  determined  to 
"make  good,"  not  for  himself  alone,  but  for  the 
organization  of  which  he  was  a  part,  and  for  his 
country. 

In  the  beginning  conditions  were  bad.    There 

.  145 


146  THE  PANAMA  CANAL 

were  few  conveniences  to  make  life  comfortable, 
and  innumerable  inconveniences  harassing  those 
who  went  there.  The  food  was  bad  and  the  water 
was  not  as  good  as  the  food.  The  quarters  were 
old  French  houses  rescued  from  the  jungle  and 
filled  with  scorpions. 

The  result  was  that  few  of  those  who  first  went 
to  the  Isthmus  remained,  and  those  who  returned 
to  the  United  States  spread  far  and  wide  reports 
of  bad  conditions  on  the  Isthmus. 

With  this  situation  in  mind  the  Canal  Commis- 
sion decided  that  two  things  had  to  be  done. 
Wholesome  living  conditions  had  to  be  created 
for  the  people  who  came  to  the  Isthmus,  and  a 
standard  of  wages  had  to  be  set  that  would  prove 
attractive  to  good  men  at  home.  It  was  thus 
that  the  pay  for  the  Americans  on  the  canal  came 
to  be  placed  at  50  per  cent  higher  than  pay  for 
the  same  character  of  work  in  the  States.  This 
soon  proved  a  strong  incentive  to  men  to  leave 
the  States  and  go  to  Panama,  and  as  living  con- 
ditions were  improved  the  number  of  men  willing 
to  accept  work  on  the  Isthmus  increased. 

Two  classes  of  Americans  turned  their  faces 
toward  the  Tropics  as  a  result  of  the  inducements 
held  out  by  the  Canal  Commission.  One  was  made 
up  of  those  who  were  willing  to  go  and  stay  a  year 
or  two,  accumulating  in  that  time  experience  and, 
perhaps,  saving  some  little  money;  the  other  was 
made  up  of  men  whose  desire  was  to  go  to  the 
Isthmus  and  stay  with  the  job,  utilizing  the  oppor- 
tunities it  afforded  for  building  up  a  comfortable 
bank  account. 

As  the  work  moved  forward  those  of  weak  pur- 


HARRY  H.  ROUSSEAU  LOWERING  A  CAISSON  SECTION 


THE  AMERICAN  WORKERS  147 

pose  and  indifference  to  opportunity  gradually 
dropped  out.  Their  places  were  taken  by  others, 
until  through  a  process  of  years  of  elimination 
there  were  approximately  5,000  Americans  at 
Panama  when  the  canal  was  finished;  an  army 
was  made  up  almost  wholly  of  men  with  a  pur- 
pose in  life  and  consequently  of  men  who  could 
be  relied  upon  to  do  their  work  to  the  best  of 
their  ability.  The  result  was  that  the  last  years 
of  the  task  of  construction  saw  every  man  loyal 
to  his  work  and  anxious  to  see  the  job  move 
forward. 

American  visitors  to  the  Isthmus  had  occasion 
to  be  proud  of  their  countrymen  there.  Every 
tourist  from  a  foreign  country  has  commented 
upon  the  distinguished  courtesy  received  at  the 
hands  of  these  men.  One  of  them,  perhaps 
England's  most  noted  travel  lecturer,  said: 

"The  thing  which  impressed  me  more  than 
anything  else,  outside  of  the  gigantic  work  and  the 
masterful  way  in  which  it  is  being  done,  was  the 
exquisite  courtesy  of  every  American  I  met  during 
my  stay.  I  found  every  one  of  them  not  only 
ready  to  give  such  information  as  he  might  have 
but  glad  to  do  so.  Each  man  was  as  proud  of  the 
work  as  if  it  were  his  own,  and  as  ready  to  show 
his  part  of  it  to  a  stranger  as  if  that  stranger  were 
his  best  friend.  It  was  a  delight  to  me  from  be- 
ginning to  end  to  see  the  magnificent  type  of 
American  manhood  at  work,  and  the  pride  taken 
by  every  worker  in  the  project." 

Every  other  tourist  brought  away  the  same 
impression.  A  man  who  went  there  without  any 
other  credentials  than  a  desire  to  see  the  work  was 


148  THE  PANAMA  CANAL 

shown  the  same  courtesy  and  consideration  as  one 
with  a  pocketful  of  letters  of  introduction. 

The  Americans  on  the  Isthmus  did  not  count 
any  hardship  too  great  if  it  were  demanded  for 
the  successful  prosecution  of  the  work.  A  case 
in  point  is  that  of  J.  A.  Loulan,  the  engineer  in 
charge  of  the  rock-crushing  plant  at  Ancon.  One 
morning  he  was  introduced  to  a  visitor  from  the 
States  who  remarked  that  everything  seemed  to  be 
running  so  smoothly  that  he  supposed  the  work  of 
a  supervising  engineer  was  no  longer  a  difficult 
task.  "Well,"  replied  the  engineer,  "at  least  it 
does  not  pay  to  worry.  Last  night  at  £  o'clock 
I  was  called  out  of  bed  by  telephone  and  informed 
that  a  Jamaican  negro  hostler  had  accidentally 
knocked  the  chock  from  under  the  wheels  of  an 
engine  he  was  firing  up,  and  that  it  had  run  down 
the  grade  and  off  the  end  of  the  track  into  about 
two  feet  of  soft  earth.  We  worked  from  that  time 
on  until  breakfast  to  get  the  engine  back,  and 
were  satisfied  to  know  that  the  accident  did  not 
delay  the  operations  at  the  crusher.  Not  a  man 
of  the  force  was  late  getting  back  to  work  after 
four  hours  of  strenuous  extra  night  duty." 

Speaking  of  the  patience  of  the  men  Com- 
missioner H.  H.  Rousseau  said  "The  reason  for 
all  this  is  not  far  to  seek;  the  man  who  has 
'nerves'  would  never  stick  it  out  on  a  job  like  this. 
The  climate,  the  exile  from  home,  and  the  char- 
acter of  the  work  all  conspire  against  the  man  who 
can  not  be  patient.  He  soon  finds  that  the  Isth- 
mus is  no  place  for  him.  The  result  is  that  a 
process  of  elimination  has  gone  on  until  the  men 
who  have  'nerves'  have  all  left  and  their  places 


THE  AMERICAN  WORKERS  149 

filled  with  those  who  are  stoical  enough  to  take 
things  as  they  come." 

The  Americans  on  the  Isthmus  were  early 
risers.  The  first  train  from  Colon  for  Panama 
leaves  about  5  o'clock  and  the  first  train  from 
Panama  for  Colon  at  6:50.  Almost  any  morning 
during  the  construction  period  one  might  walk 
into  the  dining  room  at  the  Tivoli  Hotel  and  see  a 
number  of  canal  engineers  breakfasting  there  who 
had  left  Colon  on  the  early  train.  When  one  of 
them  was  asked  if  he  did  not  find  it  something  of 
a  hardship  to  rise  so  early,  he  replied: 

"Well,  you  see,  from  the  standpoint  of  a  man 
just  from  the  States  it  would  seem  rather  an 
unheard-of  hour  for  a  man  to  get  out  and  go  to 
work;  but  we  have  to  meet  conditions  as  we  find 
them  down  here,  and  we  soon  get  reconciled  to  it. 
There  is  scarcely  a  night  that  I  am  not  called  by 
telephone  two  or  three  times,  and  I  have  to  get 
up  in  time  to  catch  the  early  train  several  mornings 
in  the  week,  so  I  get  up  at  the  same  hour  the  other 
mornings  as  well.  We  are  well  paid,  and  we  owe 
it  to  our  country  to  make  whatever  sacrifices  the 
work  demands.  And  after  a  month  or  two  we 
get  out  of  the  habit  of  feeling  that  it  is  a  sacrifice.'* 

It  is  this  spirit  of  devotion  to  the  work  that 
enabled  the  canal  authorities  to  press  it  to  a  suc- 
cessful completion  with  such  unprecedented  rapid- 
ity. These  men  knew  full  well  that  their  sacri- 
fices in  the  interest  of  progress  were  appreciated. 
The  most  rigid  spirit  of  friendly  competition  was 
maintained  from  the  beginning. 

The  spirit  of  rivalry  nowhere  counted  for  more 
than  among  the  steam-shovel  men.  In  1907  it 


150  THE  PANAMA  CANAL 

was  decided  to  publish  in  the  Canal  Record  the 
best  steam-shovel  performances  from  week  to 
week.  This  immediately  put  every  steam-shovel 
gang  on  its  mettle,  and  soon  there  was  a  great 
race  with  nearly  a  hundred  entries,  a  race  that 
continued  from  that  day  until  the  completion  of 
the  excavation.  The  result  was  that  records  of 
steam-shovel  performances  were  made  eclipsing 
everything  that  had  gone  before.  The  average 
daily  excavation  per  shovel  rose  from  year  to 
year  until  it  was  double  in  the  end  what  it  was  in 
the  beginning. 

As  heretofore  pointed  out,  the  process  of  elimin- 
ation that  went  on  continuously  during  the  con- 
struction work  sent  large  numbers  of  American 
workers  back  to  the  States  from  the  Isthmus. 
During  a  single  year  about  three-fifths  of  the 
Americans  threw  up  their  jobs  and  returned  home. 
The  average  stay  of  Americans  during  the  con- 
struction period  was  about  a  year.  Bachelors  were 
much  more  given  to  returning  to  the  States  than 
married  men.  The  endless  round  of  working, 
eating,  sleeping,  with  its  small  chance  of  diversion, 
made  the  average  bachelor  glad  to  get  back  to  the 
States  within  two  years.  On  the  other  hand,  the 
married  men  found  home  life  just  about  as  pleas- 
ant as  in  the  States.  They  had  with  them  about 
2,000  women,  and  as  many  children.  Many  of 
the  latter  were  born  under  the  American  Eagle 
at  Panama. 

The  boys  who  were  born  there  may,  if  they 
choose,  become  native  Panamans.  The  son  of  a 
former  President  of  Panama,  in  talking  with  Com- 
missioner Rousseau,  advised  him  to  make  a 


THE  AMERICAN  WORKERS  151 

Panaman  citizen  of  little  Harry  Harwood  Rous- 
seau, Jr.  "You  see,"  said  he,  and  he  spoke  in 
all  earnestness  and  seriousness,  "he  will  stand  so 
much  better  chance  of  becoming  President  of  the 
Republic  of  Panama  than  of  becoming  President 
of  the  United  States." 

The  American  children  on  the  Zone,  brimming 
over  with  life  and  health,  proved  conclusively 
that  the  Tropics  worked  no  hardship  upon  them. 

The  Canal  Commission,  from  the  beginning 
to  the  end,  made  the  welfare  of  the  army  of  workers 
one  of  its  first  cares.  As  the  days  of  a  completed 
canal  approached,  every  effort  was  made  to  enable 
the  employees  who  had  to  be  laid  off  to  find  em- 
ployment hi  the  States.  Provision  was  made  that 
they  could  accumulate  their  leave  of  absence  in 
such  a  way  as  to  entitle  them  to  84  days  of  full 
pay  after  leaving.  This  was  arranged  so  as  to 
give  them  sufficient  time  to  establish  connections 
in  the  States  again,  without  being  forced  to  do  it 
without  pay. 

Close  records  also  were  kept  of  each  employee, 
and  the  official  immediately  over  each  man  was 
ordered  to  give  him  a  rating  card  showing  his 
record  on  the  Canal  Zone.  No  higher  credentials 
could  be  carried  by  anyone  seeking  employment 
than  to  have  a  card  from  the  Canal  Commission 
showing  a  rating  of  "Excellent." 

Owing  to  the  firmness  with  which  the  com- 
mission ruled,  there  was  little  trouble  in  the  way 
of  strikes.  In  1910  a  lot  of  boiler  makers  who  were 
getting  65  cents  an  hour  on  the  per  diem  basis, 
struck  for  75  cents  an  hour.  Their  demands  were 
not  met  and  some  of  them  threw  up  their  jobs. 


152  .THE  PANAMA  CANAL 

The  commission  immediately  arranged  with  its 
Washington  office  to  fill  their  places,  and  they  had 
no  chance  whatever  to  get  further  employment 
on  the  Isthmus. 

The  commission  was  given  the  power,  by  Presi- 
dent Roosevelt,  to  order  anyone  to  leave  the 
Isthmus  whose  presence  there  was  regarded  as  a 
detriment  to  the  work.  The  result  was  that  as 
soon  as  any  man  was  found  to  be  fomenting 
trouble,  he  was  advised  that  a  ship  was  returning 
to  the  United  States  on  a  certain  date  and  that 
it  would  be  expedient  for  him  to  take  passage 
thereon.  This  power  of  deportation  was  more 
autocratic  than  any  like  power  in  the  United 
States,  but  it  proved  of  immense  value  in  keeping 
things  going  satisfactorily  at  Panama.  It  was  a 
power  whose  exercise  was  called  for  but  few  times, 
since  the  very  fact  that  the  commission  had  the 
power  was  usually  a  sufficient  deterrent. 

There  are  two  societies  on  the  Isthmus  which 
tell  of  the  effects  of  homesickness  of  the  Americans 
in  the  employ  of  the  Canal  Commission  —  the 
Incas,  and  the  Society  of  the  Chagres.  The 
Incas  are  a  group  of  men  who  meet  annually  on 
May  4th  for  a  dinner.  The  one  requirement  for 
membership  in  this  dining  club  is  service  on  the 
canal  from  the  beginning  of  the  American  occu- 
pation. In  1913  about  60  men  were  left  on  the 
Isthmus  of  all  those  Americans  who  were  there  at 
the  time  of  the  transfer  of  the  canal  property  to 
the  United  States  in  1904. 

The  Society  of  the  Chagres  was  organized  in  the 
fall  of  1911.  It  is  made  up  of  American  white 
employees  who  have  worked  six  years  continuously 


s  THE  AMERICAN  WORKERS  153 

on  the  canal.  When  President  Roosevelt  visited 
the  Isthmus  in  the  late  fall  of  1906  he  declared 
that  he  intended  to  provide  some  memorial  or 
badge  which  would  always  distinguish  the  man 
who  for  a  certain  space  of  time  had  done  his 
work  well  on  the  Isthmus,  just  as  the  button  of  the 
Grand  Army  distinguishes  the  man  who  did  his 
work  well  in  the  Civil  War.  Two  years  later  a 
ton  of  copper,  bronze,  and  tin  was  taken  from  old 
French  locomotives  and  excavators  and  shipped 
to  Philadelphia,  where  it  was  made  into  medals 
by  the  United  States  Mint.  These  medals  are 
about  the  size  of  a  dollar  and  each  person  who  has 
served  two  years  is  entitled  to  one.  It  is  estimated 
that  by  the  time  the  last  work  is  done  on  the  canal, 
about  6,000  of  these  medals  will  have  been  dis- 
tributed. For  each  additional  two  years  a  man 
worked,  the  Canal  Commission  gave  a  bar  of  the 
same  material. 

The  Society  of  the  Chagres,  therefore,  is  made  up 
of  men  who  have  served  at  least  six  years,  and  who 
have  won  their  medals  and  two  service  bars.  The 
emblem  of  the  society  is  a  circular  button  showing 
on  a  small,  black  background  six  horizontal  bars 
in  gold  which  are  surrounded  by  a  narrow  gold 
border.  In  1913  only  about  400  out  of  the  many 
thousands  of  Americans  at  one  time  or  another 
employed  in  the  construction  of  the  Panama  Canal 
were  entitled  to  wear  the  insignia  of  this  society. 


CHAPTER  XIII 

THE   NEGRO   WORKERS 

THE  West  Indian  negro  contributed  about 
60  per  c«nt  of  the  brawn  required  to  build 
the  Panama  Canal.  When  the  United 
States  undertook  the  work  the  West  Indian 
negro  had  a  bad  reputation  as  a  workman.  It 
was  said  that  he  lacked  physical  strength;  that  he 
had  little  or  no  pluck;  that  he  was  absolutely 
unreliable;  that  he  was  unusually  susceptible  to 
disease;  and  that  in  view  of  these  things  the  canal 
never  could  be  finished  if  he  were  to  supply  the 
greater  part  of  the  labor.  But  he  lived  down  this 
bad  reputation  in  large  part,  and,  although  it  must 
be  admitted  that  he  is  shiftless  always,  inconstant 
frequently,  and  exasperating  as  a  rule,  he  developed 
into  a  good  workman. 

The  Government  paid  the  West  Indian  laborer 
90  cents  a  day,  furnished  him  with  free  lodgings 
in  quarters,  and  sold  him  three  square  meals  a 
day  for  9  cents  each,  a  total  of  27  cents  a  day  for 
board  and  lodging.  On  the  balance  of  63  cents, 
the  West  Indian  negro  who  saved  was  able  to  go 
back  home  and  become  a  sort  of  Rockefeller 
among  his  compatriots.  His  possible  savings,  as 
a  matter  of  fact,  were  about  two  and  a  half  times 
the  total  wages  he  received  in  his  native  country. 

But  the  sanitary  quarters,  and  the  necessarily 

154 


THE  NEGRO  WORKERS  155 

strict  discipline  maintained  therein,  did  not  please 
him.  He  yearned  for  his  thatched  hut  in  the 
"bush,"  for  his  family,  and  the  freedom  of  the 
tropical  world.  Thus  the  homesickness  of  the 
well-quartered,  well-fed  negro  became  a  greater 
hindrance  to  the  work  than  the  ill-fed  condition 
of  the  "bush  dweller."  The  result  was  that  the 
commission  reached  the  conclusion  that  it  could 
better  maintain  a  suitable  force  by  allowing  the 
negroes  to  live  as  they  chose.  Therefore,  permis- 
sion was  given  them  to  live  hi  the  "bush,"  and 
about  nine-tenths  of  them  promptly  exchanged  the 
sanitary  restrictions  of  the  commission  quarters, 
and  the  wholesome  food  of  the  commission  mess 
kitchen,  for  the  dolce  far  niente  of  the  "bush." 
The  result  of  this  experiment  in  larger  liberty  was 
in  part  a  success  and  in  part  a  failure.  The  list 
of  names  on  the  roll  of  workers  was  largely  length- 
ened, but  there  was  no  great  addition  to  the 
force  of  the  men  at  work  on  any  given  day.  It 
was  a  common  saying  in  the  Zone  that  if  the  negro 
were  paid  twice  as  much  he  would  work  only  half 
as  long.  Most  of  them  worked  about  four  days 
a  week  and  enjoyed  themselves  the  other  three. 
It  may  be  that  the  "bush  dweller"  was  not  fed  as 
scientifically  as  the  man  in  the  quarters,  but  he 
had  his  chickens,  his  yam  and  bean  patch,  his 
family  and  his  fiddle,  and  he  made  up  in  enjoy- 
ment what  he  lost  in  scientific  care. 

Marriage  bonds  are  loose  in  the  West  Indies, 
and  common-law  marriages  are  the  rule  rather 
than  the  exception.  But,  as  one  traveled  across 
the  Isthmus  and  saw  the  hundreds  of  little  thatched 
huts  lining  the  edge  of  the  jungle,  he  could  see 


156  THE  PANAMA  CANAL 

that  the  families  who  lived  there  seemed  to  be  as 
happy,  and  the  children  as  numerous,  as  though 
both  civil  and  religious  marriage  ceremonies  had 
bound  man  and  wife  together. 

When  the  Americans  first  began  work  it  was  an 
accepted  dictum  that  one  Spaniard  or  one  Italian 
could  do  as  much  work  as  three  negroes.  The 
negroes  seemed  to  be  weak.  It  took  six  of  them 
to  carry  a  railroad  tie  where  two  Spaniards  might 
carry  it  as  well.  This  belief  that  the  Spaniard 
was  more  efficient  than  the  negro  stirred  the  West 
Indians  to  get  down  to  work,  and  in  a  year  or  two 
they  were  almost  as  efficient  while  they  were  work- 
ing as  were  the  Spaniards,  but  the  Spaniards 
worked  six  days  a  week  while  the  negroes  worked 
only  four. 

Of  course  there  were  those  who  spent  practically 
everything  as  they  made  it,  and  they  constituted 
no  small  percentage  of  the  total  negro  force.  But, 
on  the  other  hand,  some  of  the  negroes  were  in- 
dustrious, constant,  and  thrifty.  They  saved  all 
they  could,  working  steadily  for  a  year  or  two, 
and  then  went  back  to  Jamaica  or  Barbados  to 
invest  their  money  in  a  bit  of  land  and  become 
freeholders  and  consequently  better  citizens. 

The  negro  laborers  at  first  were  obtained  by 
recruiting  agents  at  work  in  the  various  West 
Indian  Islands,  principally  Jamaica  and  Barbados. 
The  recruiting  service  carried  about  30,000  to  the 
Isthmus,  of  whom  20,000  were  from  Barbados 
and  6,000  from  Jamaica.  It  was  not  more  than  a 
year  or  two,  however,  after  the  work  got  under 
way,  until  there  was  little  occasion  for  recruiting. 
Every  ship  that  went  back  to  Barbados  or  to 


THE  NEGRO  WORKERS  157 

Jamaica  carried  with  it  some  who  had  made  what 
they  considered  a  sufficient  fortune.  Every  com- 
munity possessed  those  who  had  gone  to  Panama 
with  only  the  clothes  on  their  backs,  a  small  tin 
trunk,  a  dollar  canvas  steamer  chair  and,  mayhap, 
a  few  chickens;  and  who  had  come  back  with  sav- 
ings enough  to  set  them  up  for  life.  This  fired 
dozens  from  each  of  those  same  communities 
with  the  desire  to  go  and  do  likewise.  The  result 
was  that  the  canal  employment  lists  were  kept 
full  by  those  who  came  on  their  own  initiative. 

The  terms  of  entrance  to  the  Canal  Zone  were 
easy,  the  steerage  fares  were  low,  and  as  a  result 
the  excess  of  arrivals  over  departures  sometimes 
amounted  to  20,000  in  a  single  year.  The  steam- 
ship companies  had  to  keep  careful  and  persistent 
watch  to  prevent  stowaways.  Even  at  that  there 
were  hundreds  who  sought  to  reach  the  Isthmus 
in  this  way  in  spite  of  the  fact  that  they  were 
usually  carried  back  without  being  permitted  to 
land  at  Colon. 

There  was  little  or  no  friction  between  the  whites 
and  the  blacks  on  the  Canal  Zone.  This  immunity 
from  racial  clashes  resulted  from  two  causes  —  one 
was  the  incomparable  courtesy  of  the  West  Indian 
negro  and  the  other  his  knowledge  that  he  could 
expect  good  treatment  only  so  long  as  he  kept  out 
of  trouble.  Few  of  them,  indeed,  were  ever  in- 
clined to  be  offensive.  They  are  usually  educated 
in  the  three  "R's,"  and  are  also  very  polite. 
Ask  one  a  question  and  the  answer  will  be:  "Oh, 
yes,  Sir,"  or  "Oh,  no,  Sir,"  or  if  he  has  not  under- 
stood, "Beg  pardon,  Sir."  He  would  no  more 
omit  the  honorific  than  a  Japanese  maiden  ad- 


158  THE  PANAMA  CANAL 

dressing  her  father  would  forget  to  call  him 
"Honorable." 

The  different  types  of  West  Indian  negroes 
found  on  the  Canal  Zone  constituted  an  endless 
study  in  human  characteristics.  They  were  all 
great  lovers  of  travel,  and  no  regular  train  ever 
made  a  trip  without  from  two  to  half  a  dozen 
coaches  filled  with  them.  After  pay  day  prac- 
tically every  negro  on  the  Zone  was  wont  to  get 
out  and  get  a  glimpse  of  the  country. 

Without  exception  they  are  adepts  in  carrying 
things  on  their  heads;  consequently,  they  usually 
possess  an  erect  carriage  and  splendid  bearing. 
It  is  said  that  the  first  ambition  of  a  West  Indian 
negro  child  is  to  learn  to  carry  things  on  its  head 
in  imitation  of  its  parents.  Frequently  a  negro 
will  be  seen  with  nothing  in  either  hand,  but 
carrying  a  closed  umbrella  balanced  horizontally 
on  his  head.  Once  in  a  while  one  may  be  seen  to 
get  a  letter  from  the  post  office,  place  it  on  top  of 
his  head,  weight  it  down  with  a  stone,  and  march 
off  without  any  apparent  knowledge  that  he  has 
executed  a  circus  stunt. 

Some  of  the  negroes  who  came  to  work  on  the 
canal  never  saw  a  wheelbarrow  before  arriving 
there.  Upon  one  occasion  some  French  negroes 
from  Martinique  were  placed  on  a  job  of  pick  and 
shovel  work.  Three  of  them  loaded  a  wheel- 
barrow with  earth,  then  one  of  them  stooped 
down,  the  other  two  put  the  wheelbarrow  on  his 
head  and  he  walked  away  with  it.  But,  with  all 
of  his  inexperience,  the  Martinique  negro  proved 
to  be  the  best  West  Indian  worker  on  the  canal. 

The  Martinique  negroes  were  the  most  pictur- 


THE  NEGRO  WORKERS  159 

esque  of  all  the  West  Indians  on  the  job.  The 
women  wore  striking  though  simple  costumes, 
bandana  handkerchiefs  around  their  heads,  and 
bright-colored  calico  dresses  usually  caught  up 
on  one  side  or  at  the  back,  thus  anticipating  the 
Parisian  fashion  of  the  slit  skirt  by  many  years. 

A  large  number  of  the  negroes  lived  in  small 
tenement  houses  built  by  private  capital,  and 
oftener  than  not  one  room  served  the  entire  family. 
Nearly  every  one  of  the  American  settlements  had 
its  West  Indian  quarter  where  these  buildings 
and  the  Chinese  stores  flourished  to  the  exclusion 
of  everything  else.  At  the  Pacific  end  of  the 
Panama  Railroad  there  was  a  suburb  known  as 
Caledonia,  which  was  given  over  almost  entirely 
to  West  Indian  families.  One  could  drive  through 
there  any  day  and  see  half -grown  children  dressed 
only  in  Eden's  garb.  In  other  parts  of  the  canal 
territory  one  saw  very  few  naked  children  except 
in  the  back  streets  of  Colon. 

The  Government  took  the  best  of  care  of  the 
negroes  on  the  work  during  the  entire  construction 
period.  There  were  hospital  facilities  at  both 
ends  of  the  canal  and  sick  camps  along  the  line. 
The  commissary  protected  them  against  extortion 
by  the  native  merchants  and  gave  them  the  same 
favorable  rates  enjoyed  by  the  Americans.  The 
color  line  was  kindly  but  firmly  drawn  throughout 
the  work,  the  negroes  being  designated  as  silver 
employees  and  the  Americans  as  gold  employees. 
The  post  offices  had  signs  indicating  which  en- 
trances were  for  silver  employees  and  which  for 
gold  employees.  The  commissaries  had  the  same 
provisions,  and  the  railroad  company  made  thp 


160  THE  PANAMA  CANAL 

general  distinction  as  much  as  it  could  by  first 
and  second  class  passenger  rates.  Very  few  of 
the  negroes  ever  made  any  protest  against  this. 
Once  in  awhile  an  American  negro  would  go  to 
the  post  office  and  be  told  that  he  must  call  at  the 
"silver"  window.  He  would  protest  for  awhile, 
but  finding  it  useless,  would  acquiesce. 

The  idea  of  speaking  of  "silver  and  gold  em- 
ployees," rather  than  black  and  white  employees, 
was  originated  by  E.  J.  Williams,  Jr.,  the  dis- 
bursing officer  of  the  Canal  Commission.  He 
first  put  this  designation  on  the  entrances  to  the 
pay  car  and  it  was  immediately  adopted  as  the 
solution  of  the  troubles  growing  out  of  the  inter- 
mingling of  the  races. 

One  of  the  most  interesting  experiences  that 
could  come  to  any  visitor  to  the  Isthmus  was  a 
trip  across  the  Zone  on  the  pay  car;  to  see  24  tons 
of  silver  and  1,600  pounds  of  gold  paid  out  for  a 
single  month's  work;  and  to  watch  the  30,000 
negroes,  the  5,000  Americans,  and  the  3,000  or 
4,000  Europeans  on  the  job  file  through  the  pay 
car  and  get  their  money.  The  negroes  were 
usually  a  good-natured,  grinning  lot  of  men  and 
boys,  but  they  were  wont  to  get  impatient,  not 
with  the  amount  of  money  they  drew  but  with  its 
weight.  Under  an  agreement  with  the  Panama 
Government  the  Canal  Commission  endeavored 
to  keep  the  Panaman  silver  money  at  par.  Two 
dollars  Panaman  money  was  worth  one  dollar 
American,  and  the  employees,  were  paid  in 
Panaman  coin.  Thus  a  negro  who  earned  $22 
during  the  month  would  get  44  of  the  "spiggoty" 
dollars.  These  "spiggoty"  dollars  are  the  same 


THE  NEGRO  WORKERS  161 

size  as  our  own  silver  dollars  and  to  carry  them 
around  was  something  of  a  task. 

When  the  negroes  were  asked  what  they  pro- 
posed to  do  with  their  money  the  almost  invariable 
reply  was:  "Put  it  to  a  good  use,  sir."  American 
money  was  always  at  a  premium  with  them  and 
the  money-changers  in  the  various  towns  usually 
did  a  land-office  business  on  pay  day. 

Paper  money  was  not  used  on  the  pay  car  at 
all.  In  the  first  place,  there  was  always  danger 
of  its  blowing  away,  and  in  the  second  place  paper 
money  hi  the  hands  of  negro  workmen  soon  as- 
sumed a  most  unsanitary  condition.  The  negroes 
were  always  desirous  of  getting  American  paper 
money  because  they  could  send  it  home  more 
cheaply  than  gold. 

Large  numbers  of  West  Indian  women,  the 
majority  of  them  with  their  relatives,  lived  on  the 
Zone  during  the  construction  period.  They  were  for 
the  most  part  industrious  and  made  very  good 
household  servants.  They  were  nearly  always 
polite  and  deferential,  some  of  them  even  saying, 
"Please,  Ma'am,"  when  saying  "Good  morning." 

It  was  a  rare  experience  to  travel  on  a  ship 
carrying  workers  to  the  Canal  Zone  from  the  Is- 
lands of  the  West  Indies.  Ships  calling  at  King- 
ston, Jamaica,  would  usually  take  on  a  hundred  or 
more  passengers.  They  would  be  quartered  either 
forward  or  aft  on  the  main  deck.  They  would 
carry  aboard  with  them  all  kinds  of  small  packages. 
Some  would  have  small  boxes  of  chickens  or  pig- 
eons, and  some  little  old  sawbuck-fashioned  folding 
beds  covered  with  canvas.  As  soon  as  inspected 
by  the  doctor  for  trachoma  each  negro  would 


162  THE  PANAMA  CANAL 

select  the  most  favorable  spot,  gather  his  furniture 
around  him,  and  settle  down  in  one  place,  there 
to  remain  almost  without  moving  during  the  whole 
of  the  40-hour  trip  across  the  Caribbean.  When 
the  water  was  fine  and  the  sailing  smooth  the  first 
cabin  passengers  might  conclude  that  they  were 
carrying  a  negro  camp  meeting.  On  the  other 
hand,  if  the  weather  were  bad  and  the  sea  rough, 
a  sicker  lot  of  people  nowhere  might  be  found. 
One  of  the  favorite  negro  preventives  of  seasick- 
ness is  St.  Thomas  bay  rum  applied  liberally  to 
the  face,  although  to  the  on-looker  it  never  seems 
to  prevent  or  cure  a  single  case. 

Before  landing  at  Colon  every  one  of  these 
negroes  had  to  be  vaccinated.  Almost  without 
exception  they  tried  to  prevent  the  virus  "taking" 
by  rubbing  the  scarified  spot  with  lime  juice  or 
with  some  other  preparation.  Meals  on  board 
generally  consisted  of  rice  and  potatoes,  and, 
perhaps,  coffee  and  bread.  One  might  see  a  dozen 
young  girls  in  a  grpup  eating  with  one  hand  and 
with  the  other  polishing  their  complexions  with  the 
half  of  a  lime. 

With  all  his  faults  — -  and  they  were  not  few  — 
the  West  Indian  negro  laborer  probably  was  the 
best  workman  that  could  have  been  employed  for 
the  job  at'  Panama.  He  was  usually  as  irrespon- 
sible, as  carefree,  and  yet  as  reliable  a  workman  as 
our  own  American  cottonfield  hand.  He  made  a 
law-abiding  citizen  on  the  Zone,  was  tractable  as 
a  workman,  and  pretty  certain  always  to  make  a 
fair  return  to  the  United  States  oh  the  money  it 
paid  him  in  wages. 

Under   the   firm   but   gentle    guidance    of   the 


THE  NEGRO  WORKERS  163 

master  American  hand,  lie  did  his  work  so  well 
that  he  has  forever  erased  from  the  record  of  his 
kind  certain  charges  of  inefficiency  and  laziness 
that  had  long  stood  as  a  black  mark  against  him. 

The  Canal  Commission  so  appreciated  his  good 
work  that  it  made  arrangements  to  return  him 
to  his  native  country  when  his  services  no  longer 
were  required,  there  to  take  up  the  life  he  led  be- 
fore he  heard  the  call  of  the  "spiggoty"  dollars 
that  took  him  across  the  Caribbean. 

He  will  miss  the  life  on  the  Isthmus.  He  was 
worked  harder,  he  was  treated  better,  and  he  was 
paid  higher  wages  there  than  he  ever  will  be  again 
in  his  life.  Perhaps  he  has  saved;  if  so,  he  retires 
to  be  a  nabob.  Perhaps  he  has  wasted;  if  so,  he 
must  go  back  to  the  hand-to-mouth  existence  that 
he  knew  in  the  days  before. 

But  after  all,  the  experience  of  the  thousands 
of  West  Indian  negroes  employed  on  the  canal 
will  have  a  stimulating  effect  on  their  home  coun- 
tries, and  their  general  level  of  industrial  and 
social  conditions  will  be  raised. 

At  any  rate,  the  American  Republic  always  must 
stand  indebted  to  these  easy-going,  care-free 
black  men  who  supplied  the  brawn  to  break  the 
giant  back  of 


CHAPTER  XIV 

THE   COMMISSARY 

TO  BUILD  the  canal  required  the  labor  of 
some  fifty  thousand  men.  To  induce 
these  men  to  go  to  Panama,  to  stay  there, 
to  work  there,  and  to  work  there  efficiently,  was 
no  light  undertaking.  Health  was  promised  them 
by  the  most  efficient  sanitary  organization  that 
ever  battled  with  disease.  Wealth  was  promised 
them,  relatively  speaking,  in  the  form  of  wages  and 
salaries  much  higher  than  they  could  obtain  at 
home  for  the  same  work.  But  health  and  wealth, 
much  desired  and  much  prized  as  they  are,  can 
not  of  themselves  compensate  for  transplanting 
a  man  to  an  alien  shore  and  an  alien  atmosphere, 
especially  if  that  shore  be  tropic  and  that  atmos- 
phere hot.  There  must  also  be  comfort. 

And  comfort  was  promised  to  the  canal  diggers 
by  the  commissary  department.  Good  food  at 
prices  cheaper  than  one  pays  in  the  United  States, 
and  quarters  of  the  best  —  these  things  the  com- 
missary held  out  as  a  part  of  the  rewards  at 
Panama. 

Of  course  this  was  not  the  chief  object  of  the 
commissary  department  —  it  was  the  incidental 
factor  that  in  the  end  almost  obscured  the  main 
issue.  The  main  business  was  so  well  done  that 
everybody  took  it  for  granted,  just  as  no  one  will 

164 


THE  COMMISSARY  165 

remark  about  the  sun  shining  although  that  is  the 
most  important  fact  we  know.  The  main  business 
of  the  commissary  was  to  keep  the  canal  diggers  fed 
and  housed  so  that  they  would  have  the  strength 
for  their  tasks.  How  this  was  done,  how  fresh 
beef  and  ice  cream  were  made  daily  staples  in 
tropic  Panama,  how  the  canal  army  was  fed,  is  a 
big  story  in  itself. 

The  history  of  the  French  regime  was  such  as  to 
prejudice  the  whole  world  against  the  canal  region 
and  to  deter  any  but  the  most  adventurous  spirit 
from  entering  there  into  a  gamble  with  death. 
The  Americans  soon  found  that  without  extra- 
ordinary inducements  it  would  be  next  to  impos- 
sible to  recruit  a  force  able  to  build  the  canal. 
Therefore  it  was  determined  to  make  the  rewards 
so  great  that  extra  dollars  to  be  gained  by  going 
to  Panama  would  outweigh  the  fears  of  those  who 
had  any  desire  to  go.  It  was  decided  to  pay  the 
employees  of  the  Canal  Commission  and  the 
Panama  Railroad  Company  wages  and  salaries 
approximately  one-half  higher  than  those  obtain- 
ing at  home  for  the  same  work.  Furthermore,  it 
was  decided  that  the  Government  should  furnish 
free  quarters,  free  medical  service,  free  light,  and 
other  items  which  enter  into  the  expense  budget 
of  the  average  family.  It  was  found  advisable  to 
establish  Government  hotels,  messes,  and  kitchens, 
where  the  needs  of  every  employee  from  the  high- 
est officer  to  the  most  lowly  negro  laborer  could 
be  met,  and  to  operate  them  at  cost. 

Still  another  problem  had  to  be  faced;  that 
of  providing  places  where  the  people  employed  in 
building  the  canal  could  escape  from  the  high 


166  THE  PANAMA  CANAL 

prices  fixed  by  the  merchants  of  Panama  and  Colon. 
With  this  end  in  view,  a  great  department  store, 
carrying  upward  of  5,000  different  articles,  was 
built  at  Cristobal.  This  store  established  branches 
in  every  settlement  of  canal  workers  where  pa- 
trons could  go  to  ship  and  receive  the  benefit  of 
prices  much  lower  than  those  prevailing  with 
regular  Panaman  merchants. 

Anyone  who  will  study  carefully  the  annual 
reports  of  the  operation  of  the  commissary  of  the 
Panama  Railroad  Company,  will  realize  what 
great  profits  are  made  by  the  various  middlemen 
in  the  United  States  who  handle  food  products 
between  the  producer  and  the  consumer.  In  1912 
the  commissary  had  gross  sales  amounting  to 
$6,702,000,  with  purchases  amounting  to  $5,325,000. 
This  represents  a  gross  profit  of  26  per  cent.  The 
cost  of  transportation  from  New  York  and  distri- 
bution on  the  Isthmus,  amounted  to  about  24  per 
cent,  leaving  a  net  profit  of  approximately  2  per 
cent  on  the  sales  of  goods.  When  it  is  remem- 
bered that  transportation  of  commissary  products 
from  New  York  amounted  approximately  to  a 
quarter  of  a  million  dollars  a  year,  and  that  wagon 
deliveries  on  the  Isthmus  added  $50,000  a  year 
to  this,  it  will  be  seen  that  the  expenses  of  distri- 
bution at  Panama  were  approximately  on  the 
same  footing  with  those  in  the  United  States. 

In  the  case  of  dressed  beef,  one  finds  a  most 
illuminating  example  of  how  it  is  possible  to  sell 
the  ordinary  items  of  a  family  budget  to  the  con- 
sumer at  rates  much  lower  than  those  obtaining  in 
the  United  States.  According  to  the  most  authen- 
tic information  dressed  beef  laid  down  at  Panama 


THE  COMMISSARY  167 

v 

costs  more,  quality  for  quality,  than  it  costs  the 
ordinary  retail  butcher  in  the  States.  At  one  time 
in  1912  the  commissary  was  paying  $11.94j  a  hun- 
dred pounds  for  whole  dressed  beeves  laid  down  in 
New  York.  This  was  for  the  best  corn-fed  western 
steers,  a  grade  of  beef  that  is  found  only  in  the  best 
retail  butcher  shops  of  any  American  city.  Yet, 
with  the  expense  of  ocean-refrigerator  carriage 
added,  and  with  other  operating  costs  equal  to  those 
of  the  retail  butcher  in  the  States,  the  commissary 
found  it  possible  to  sell  to  the  consumer,  delivered 
at  his  kitchen  door,  porterhouse  steaks  from  this 
beef  at  20  cents,  sirloin  steaks  and  roasts  at  19  cents, 
and  round  steaks  at  13  cents  a  pound.  At  this 
same  time  the  average  American  housewife  was 
paying  from  26  to  30  cents  for  porterhouse  steaks, 
from  22  to  26  cents  for  sirloin  steaks  and  roasts, 
and  from  17  to  22  cents  for  round  steaks;  and  in 
the  butcher  shops  in  the  United  States  where 
grades  of  meat  comparable  to  those  at  Panama 
were  handled  the  figures  were  usually  around  the 
top  quotations. 

One  cannot  escape  asking  the  question  how  it 
is  that  if  the  Panama  Railroad  commissary  could 
pay  approximately  12  cents  a  pound  for  dressed 
beef  at  New  York,  deliver  it  in  refrigeration  at 
Cristobal,  thence  to  the  housewife  by  train  and 
wagon,  and  make  a  gross  profit  of  some  26  per 
cent  by  the  operation,  that  the  American  retail 
butcher  can  reasonably  claim  that  at  the  price  he 
sells  his  meat  he  is  making  little  or  no  net  profit. 

One  finds  the  same  scale  of  prices  on  other  com- 
modities at  Panama  as  meats.  Only  the  very 
best  goods  are  handled  in  the  commissary.  Any 


168  THE  PANAMA  CANAL 

reasonable  need  of  any  employee  could  be  sup- 
plied by  the  commissary  at  prices  probably  lower 
than  a  retail  merchant  in  the  United  States  could 
buy  the  same  commodities. 

A  few  instances  of  how  the  commissary  fared 
when  its  supply  ran  short  will  serve  to  illustrate 
the  grasping  disposition  of  the  average  Panaman 
merchant. 

In  one  case  high  waters  in  the  Chagres  inter- 
rupted traffic  on  the  Panama  Railroad,  and  the 
price  of  ice  in  Panama  City  promptly  jumped  from 
50  cents  to  $1  a  hundred  pounds.  At  another 
time  a  ship  bringing  coffee  to  the  Isthmus  ran 
aground  and  the  commissary  had  to  buy  coffee  in 
the  Panama  market.  It  had  to  pay  6  cents  a 
pound  more  at  wholesale  for  the  coffee  than  it  was 
selling  for  at  retail  in  Panama  the  day  before  the 
ship  went  aground.  On  another  occasion  a  vessel 
carrying  a  supply  of  milk  went  ashore  and  the 
wholesale  price  of  that  commodity  jumped  a 
hundred  per  cent  overnight.  The  Panaman  mer- 
chants made  a  long  and  persistent  fight  to  get  the 
privilege  of  doing  the  business  which  is  done  by 
the  cummissary,  but  the  canal  officials  were  too 
wise  to  allow  the  working  force  to  be  dependent 
upon  native  business  men  for  family  budget  needs. 

Although  the  commissary  did  an  annual  busi- 
ness of  nearly  $7,000,000  a  year  during  the  height 
of  the  construction  period,  it  received  compara- 
tively little  actual  money  for  the  commodities 
it  sold.  A  great  deal  of  this  business  was  with  the 
subsistence  department  of  the  Canal  Commission, 
furnishing  supplies  for  the  hotels,  European 
laborers'  messes,  and  common  laborers'  kitchens. 


THE  COMMISSARY  169 

Practically  all  of  the  remainder  was  with  the 
employees  of  the  commission,  and  was  done 
through  coupon  books.  When  an  individual 
wanted  to  buy  from  the  commissary  he  asked  that 
a  coupon  book  be  issued  him.  If  it  were  found 
that  he  had  sufficient  money  coming  to  him  for 
services  rendered  to  cover  the  cost  of  the  book,  it 
was  issued  to  him  and  the  clerk  in  the  commissary 
detached  coupons  to  cover  the  purchases.  When 
the  monthly  pay  roll  was  made  up,  the  cost  of 
the  coupon  books  was  deducted  from  the  amount 
due  the  employee  for  services.  Many  employees 
and  their  families  lived  too  far  away  from  the 
commissaries  to  make  daily  visits,  so  they  simply 
deposited  their  coupon  books  with  the  main  com- 
missary at  Cristobal  and  sent  their  orders  in  by 
mail  from  day  to  day.  The  commissary  clerks 
would  fill  these  written  orders,  sending  the  goods 
out  on  the  first  train. 

In  addition  to  buying  and  selling  products  for 
the  benefit  of  the  canal  workers,  the  commissary 
operated  a  number  of  manufacturing  establish- 
ments. It  had  a  bakery  using  some  20,000  bar- 
rels of  flour,  baking  6,000,000  loaves  of  bread 
and  other  things  in  proportion  annually;  an  ice- 
cream plant  freezing  138,000  gallons  of  ice-cream 
annually;  a  laundry  washing  4,250,000  pieces  a 
year;  a  coffee-roasting  plant;  and  a  large  cold- 
storage  warehouse.  About  70,000  people  were 
constantly  supplied  with  commodities  from  the 
commissary. 

In  its  efforts  to  meet  the  needs  of  the  several 
classes  of  employees  on  the  Canal  Zone  the  com- 
mission established  four  different  kinds  of  eating 


170  THE  PANAMA  CANAL 

places,  —  a  large  general  hotel,  a  score  of  line 
hotels,  Spanish  messes,  and  West  Indian  laborers' 
kitchens.  At  Ancon  it  built  the  large  Tivoli  Hotel 
costing  half  a  million  dollars,  for  the  accommoda- 
tion of  visitors;  and  of  those  high-class  employees 
who  desired  modern  hotel  facilities.  This  hotel  is 
the  social  center  of  the  Canal  Zone.  Here  prac- 
tically all  of  the  tourists  come  and  stay  while  on 
the  Isthmus. 

During  the  year  1912  this  hotel  cleared  $53,000 
in  its  operations.  The  cost  of  the  supplies  for  the 
meals  served,  of  which  there  were  161,000,  was 
approximately  51  cents  per  meal.  The  cost  of 
services  was  approximately  19  cents,  making  a 
total  of  70  cents  per  meal.  The  rates  were  $3 
up  to  $5.50  a  day,  employees  being  given  special 
concessions. 

The  line  hotels  were,  more  properly  speaking, 
merely  dining-rooms  where  the  American  em- 
ployees were  furnished  substantial  meals  for  30 
cents  each.  Outsiders  paid  50  cents  each  for  these 
meals.  They  were  up  to  a  very  high  standard. 
Once  the  late  Senator  Thomas  H.  Carter,  of  Mon- 
tana, was  a  member  of  a  Senate  committee  visiting 
the  Isthmus  and  he  invited  the  subsistence  officer, 
Maj.  Wilson,  to  come  to  Washington  and  show  the 
manager  of  the  Senate  restaurant  how  to  prepare 
a  good  meal.  A  year  later,  after  Senator  Albert 
B.  Cummins,  of  Iowa,  had  eaten  one  of  the  lunches 
at  Gatun,  he  renewed  the  invitation  of  Senator 
Carter,  telling  Maj.  Wilson  he  was  sure  that  if  he 
were  to  come  Senators  would  get  better  meals  for 
their  money.  At  one  of  the  Congressional  hear- 
ings on  the  Isthmus  Representative  T.  W.  Sims, 


WASHINGTON 
HOTEL,  COLON    / 


THE  TIVOLI  HOTEL,  ANCON 


THE  COMMISSARY  171 

of  Tennessee,  asked  that  the  menu  of  a  meal  he 
had  eaten  at  one  of  these  hotels  be  inserted  in  the 
record.  Major  Wilson  inserted  the  menu  for 
several  days  instead.  The  following  is  the  menu 
at  the  Cristobal  Hotel  for  January  20,  1912: 

Breakfast.  —  Oranges,  sliced  bananas,  oatmeal, 
eggs  to  order,  German  potatoes,  ham  or  bacon,  hot 
cakes,  maple  sirup,  tea,  coffee,  cocoa. 

Lunch.  —  Vegetable  soup,  fried  pork  chops, 
apple  sauce,  boiled  potatoes,  pork  and  beans, 
sliced  buttered  beets,  stewed  cranberries,  creamed 
parsnips,  lemon  meringue  pie,  tea,  coffee,  cocoa. 

Dinner.  —  Consomme  vermicelli,  beefsteak,  nat- 
ural gravy,  lyonnaise  potatoes,  stewed  beans, 
sliced  beets,  stewed  apples,  carrots  a  la  Julienne, 
hot  biscuits,  ice-cream,  chocolate  cake,  tea,  coffee, 
cocoa. 

The  line  hotels  in  1912,  which  were  operated  at 
a  loss  of  $12,000,  served  over  2,000,000  meals. 
The  cost  of  the  supplies  per  meal  amounted  to 
$0.2504  and  the  service  to  $0.0165,  making  the 
average  meal  cost  $0.3065,  while  the  employees 
were  charged  30  cents.  Approximately  2,000 
Americans  were  continuous  patrons  of  the  line 
hotels. 

The  messes  for  European  laborers  were  operated 
in  1912  at  a  total  cost  of  $405,000.  The  returns 
from  their  operations  amounted  to  $443,000,  show- 
ing a  net  profit  of  $38,000  on  1,108,000  rations. 
The  net  profit  per  day's  ration  approximated  3j 
cents.  The  supplies  entering  into  the  ration  cost 
$0.3106  and  the  service  of  preparing  it  $0.0547. 

The  national  diet  for  Europeans  would  appear 
very  monotonous  to  Americans.  For  the  Span- 


172  THE  PANAMA  CANAL 

iards  who  constituted  the  major  portion  of  the 
European  employees,  it  was  a  "rancho,"  which  is  a 
mixture  of  stewed  meat,  potatoes,  cabbage,  toma- 
toes and  garbanzos  heavily  flavored  with  Spanish 
sweet  pepper.  Their  soups  were  made  very  stiff, 
really  a  meal  in  themselves,  since  they  were  about 
the  consistency  of  Irish  stew  mashed  up.  A  day's 
ration  for  Spanish  laborers  ran  about  as  follows: 

Breakfast.  —  Roast  beef,  pork  sausage,  corned- 
beef,  sardines  or  bacon,  one-half  loaf  of  bread, 
chocolate  and  milk. 

Dinner.  —  Garbanzos  or  macaroni,  roast  beef 
or  hamburger  steak,  fried  potatoes,  oranges  or 
bananas,  one-half  loaf  of  bread,  coffee. 

Supper.  —  Rice  soup,  peas  or  beans,  rancho, 
one-quarter  loaf  of  bread,  tea. 

The  Government  charged  the  European  labor- 
ers 40  cents  a  day  for  their  meals.  Their  mess 
halls  were  large,  airy,  comfortable  and  conspicu- 
ously clean.  The  European  laborers  nearly  all 
patronized  these  mess  halls;  about  3,200  of  them 
constantly  were  fed  at  these  places. 

Wherever  there  was  a  West  Indian  negro  settle- 
ment along  the  line  of  the  canal  the  commission 
operated  a  mess  kitchen.  These  kitchens  were 
kept  scrupulously  clean  and  the  laborers  were 
furnished  meals  at  9  cents  each.  Each  laborer 
who  patronized  the  kitchen  had  his  little  kit  into 
which  the  attendants  put  his  meal,  and  he  could 
carry  it  anywhere  he  desired  to  eat  it.  In  spite  of 
the  fact  that  these  meals  corresponded  almost 
exactly  to  the  American  Regular  Army  field  rations, 
they  were  never  popular  with  the  West  Indian 
negroes.  Although  there  were  some  25,000  of 


THE  COMMISSARY  173 

these  laborers  on  the  canal  in  1912,  only  a  little 
more  than  a  half  million  rations  were  issued  to 
them  during  the  year.  Less  than  15  per  cent 
of  the  negro  force  patronized  the  commission 
kitchen. 

The  following  is  a  specimen  day's  ration  in  a 
West  Indian  kitchen: 

Breakfast.  —  Cocoa  and  milk,  porridge,  bread, 
jam. 

Dinner.  —  Pea    soup,    beef,    doughboys,    rice, 
bread,  bananas. 

Supper.  —  Stewed  beef,  boiled  potatoes,  stewed 
navy  beans,  bread,  tea. 

During  the  construction  period  of  the  canal  the 
average  American  received  approximately  $150 
a  month  for  his  labor.  Those  who  were  married 
and  remained  in  the  service  a  reasonable  time  were 
provided,  rent  free,  with  family  quarters.  Their 
light  bills  were  never  rendered,  the  coal  for  their 
kitchen  stoves  cost  them  nothing,  and  the  iceman 
never  came  around  to  collect.  The  bachelors 
were  provided  with  bachelor  quarters  with  the 
necessary  furniture  for  making  them  comfort- 
able. The  average  married  quarters  cost  from 
$1,200  to  $1,800  each,  and  the  average  quarters 
for  a  bachelor  about  $500  to  construct.  The 
higher  officials  had  separate  houses;  lesser  officials 
were  furnished  with  semi-detached  houses.  The 
majority  of  the  rank  and  file  of  American  married 
employees  were  housed  in  roomy,  four-flat  houses. 
The  verandas  were  broad  and  screened  in  with 
the  best  copper  netting,  and  all  quarters  were  pro- 
vided with  necessary  furniture  at  Government 
expense. 


174  THE  PANAMA  CANAL 

The  assignment  of  quarters  and  furniture  called 
for  a  great  deal  of  diplomacy  on  the  part  of  the 
quartermaster's  department,  since,  if  Mrs.  Jones 
happened  to  visit  Mrs.  Smith,  and  found  that 
she  had  a  swell-front  dresser  in  her  bedroom,  while 
her  own  was  a  straight-front  dresser,  an  irate  lady 
was  very  shortly  calling  on  the  district  quarter- 
master and  demanding  to  know  why  such  dis- 
crimination should  be  practiced.  Perhaps  she 
had  been  on  the  Canal  Zone  longer  than  Mrs. 
Smith,  and  felt  that  if  anyone  were  entitled  to 
the  swell-front  dresser  she  was  the  one.  The 
district  quartermaster  had  to  explain  with  all  the 
patience  at  his  command  that  it  was  not  a  case 
of  discrimination  but  merely  that  the  commis- 
sion had  bought  swell-front  dressers  at  a  later 
date  for  the  same  price  that  it  formerly  had 
paid  for  the  straight-front  ones,  and  that  con- 
sequently the  people  who  furnished  houses  later 
got  them. 

On  another  occasion  Mrs.  Brown,  calling  on 
Mrs.  White,  found  that  Mrs.  White  had  an  electric 
light  on  her  side  porch.  She  immediately  fared 
forth  to  pull  the  hair  of  the  quartermaster  for  this 
discrimination,  but  was  somewhat  taken  back 
when  that  official  calmly  informed  her  that  the 
light  had  been  put  there  for  a  few  days  in  anticipa- 
tion of  a  children's  party  that  was  to  be  given  by 
Mrs.  White  one  night  that  week. 

The  marvelous  success  of  the  commissary,  not 
only  in  affording  its  patrons  better  service  at 
lower  prices,  but  also  in  making  a  substantial 
profit  on  the  undertaking,  had  been  referred  to 
as  the  most  valuable  lesson  taught  by  the  whole 


THE  COMMISSARY  175 

canal  digging  operation.  It  has  proved  the  effi- 
ciency of  government  agencies  in  fields  far  removed 
from  the  ordinary  operations  of  government,  and 
it  may  be  that  its  experience  will  be  used  to  ad- 
vantage in  combating  the  high  cost  of  living  in 
the  United  States  itself. 


CHAPTER  XV 

LIFE  ON  THE  ZONE 

TRANSPLANT  a  man  or  a  woman  from  a 
home  in  a  temperate  climate  to  an  abode 
in  the  Tropics,  and  there  is  bound  to  be 
trouble.  Disturbances  in  the  body  are  expected 
and,  proper  precautions  being  taken,  most  often 
are  warded  off.  Disturbances  in  the  mind  are 
not  anticipated,  preventive  measures  are  seldom 
taken,  and  there  comes  the  trouble.  That  is 
why  the  Young  Men's  Christian  Association  and 
the  American  Federation  of  Women's  Clubs  had 
their  part  to  do  in  digging  the  Panama  Canal,  a 
part  second  in  importance  only  to  the  sanitary 
work  under  Colonel  Gorgas. 

It's  an  odd  thing  —  this  transplanting  a  man 
from  the  temperate  to  the  torrid  zone.  It  affects 
men  of  different  nations  in  different  ways.  It  is 
disastrous  in  inverse  ratio  to  the  adaptability 
of  the  man  transplanted.  A  German  or  a  Dutch- 
man goes  to  the  Tropics  and  almost  without  a 
struggle  yields  to  the  demands  of  the  new  climate 
all  his  orderly  daily  habits.  Your  Dutchman  in 
Java  will,  except  on  state  occasions,  wear  the 
native  dress  (or  undress);  eat  the  native  food;  live 
in  the  native  house;  and,  like  as  not,  take  a  native 
woman  to  wife.  One  thing  only  —  he  will  retain 
his  schnapps.  The  German  is  only  a  little  less 

176 


LIFE  ON  THE  ZONE  177 

adaptable,  clings  only  a  little  longer  to  the  routine 
of  the  Fatherland,  but  he,  too,  keeps  his  beer. 

Your  Englishman,  on  the  contrary,  defies  the 
tropical  sun  and  scorns  to  make  any  changes  in 
his  daily  kabit  that  he  had  not  fixed  upon  as  neces- 
sary and  proper  before  he  left  his  right  little,  tight 
little,  island.  He  does,  it  is  true,  wear  a  pith 
helmet.  That  is  due  partly,  perhaps,  to  his  fear 
of  the  sun,  but  it  is  much  more  due  to  the  fact 
that  he  associates  it  with  lands  where  faces  are 
not  white;  therefore  he  wears  it  in  Egypt  in  the 
winter  when  it  is  shivery  cold  with  the  same  relig- 
ious devotion  that  he  wears  it  in  India  when  the 
mercury  is  running  out  of  the  top  of  the  thermom- 
eter. Your  Englishman,  it  is  true,  wears  white 
duck  clothes  in  the  Tropics,  but  not  the  fiercest 
heat  that  old  Sol  ever  produced  could  induce  him 
for  one  moment  to  exchange  his  flannel  underwear 
for  cotton  or  to  leave  off  his  woolen  hose.  It  is  a 
pretty  theory  and  not  without  much  support, 
that  it  is  this  British  defiance  of  tropical  customs 
that  has  given  him  the  mastery  over  Tropic  peo- 
ples. And  wherever  goes  the  Briton  there  goes 
also  Scotch-and-soda. 

The  Americans  steer  a  middle  course.  They 
dress  for  the  heat  and  make  themselves  comfortable 
as  possible.  They  consume  even  greater  quanti- 
ties of  ice  than  they  do  at  home,  and  the  average 
American  eats  every  day  in  summer  enough  ice 
to  kill  a  score  of  Englishmen.  At  least,  that's 
what  the  Englishmen  would  think. 

But  the  American  in  the  Tropics  tenaciously 
clings  to  many  of  his  home  habits,  despite  the 
changed  conditions  of  his  place  of  sojourn.  He 


178  THE  PANAMA  CANAL 

must  have  his  bath,  even  though  he  talks  less 
about  it  than  the  Englishman.  He  must  have 
his  three  square  meals  a  day,  and  breakfast  must 
be  a  real  breakfast.  He  demands  screens  to 
protect  him  from  pestiferous  insects,  ho  less  for 
comfort's  sake  than  health's.  And  then  he  de- 
mands two  other  things  —  a  soda  fountain  and 
a  base-ball  team. 

It  is  true  that  he  often  will  indulge  in  a  British 
peg  of  Scotch-and-soda,  or  in  a  German  stein 
of  beer,  but  the  native  drink  that  he  takes  with 
him  to  the  Tropics,  and  one  that  he  alone  con- 
sumes, and  the  one  that  he,  in  season  and  out  of 
season,  demands,  is  the  sweet,  innocent,  and  non- 
alcoholic product  of  the  soda  fountain.  How 
incomprehensible  is  this  to  the  sons  of  other  nations 
no  American  may  ever  understand. 

It  may  seem  to  be  going  far  field  to  discuss  even 
in  the  general  way  the  differing  tempers  of  men  of 
different  nations  transplanted  from  a  temperate 
to  a  torrid  clime.  But,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  it  has 
a  direct  bearing  on  the  accomplishment  at  Panama, 
of  which  Americans  are  so  proud. 

When  the  Americans  first  undertook  the  task, 
the  denizens  of  the  Isthmus  prepared  for  them 
only  such  entertainment  as  had  been  acceptable 
in  other  days.  The  only  places  open  to  the  tired 
worker  in  the  evening  were  the  saloons,  selling 
bad  whiskey  and  worse  beer;  or  darker  hells  of 
sure  and  quick  damnation.  There  were  no  thea- 
ters that  would  appeal  to  the  American  taste, 
no  sports  that  the  clean  American  would  tolerate. 
In  short,  when  the  American  in  the  early  days  of 
the  construction  was  wearied  with  that  weariness 


LIFE  ON  THE  ZONE  179 

that  would  not  respond  to  resting,  there  was  but 
one  thing  left.  He  got  home  —  sick  and  drunk. 

In  those  early  days  there  were  few  women.  Most 
of  the  men  who  came  then  were  moved  rather 
by  a  spirit  of  adventure  than  by  a  determination 
to  share  in  a  tremendous  job  of  work,  and  such 
men  were  not  married.  It  was  not  long  until 
the  men  at  the  head  discovered  that  the  married 
men  were  more  content,  that  they  lost  less  time 
from  the  work,  and  produced  more  results  when 
on  the  job  than  did  the  bachelors.  (This,  of 
course,  must  not  be  taken  as  an  indictment  against 
every  individual  bachelor  who  worked  at  Panama, 
but  rather  as  a  characterization  based  on  the 
average  of  that  class.)  Thus  in  the  very  order 
of  things  it  became  the  policy  of  the  commission 
to  encourage  unmarried  men  at  work  to  marry, 
and  to  bring  married  men  from  the  States  rather 
than  bachelors.  Inducements  were  held  out,  put- 
ting a  premium  on  matrimony.  The  bachelor 
worker  had  good  quarters,  but  he  perhaps  shared 
but  a  room  in  a  bungalow,  whereas  the  married 
man  had  a  four-room  house  of  his  own,  with  a 
big  porch,  and  free  furniture,  free  light,  and  the 
problem  of  the  cost  of  living  solved  by  the  paternal 
commissary. 

So  matrimony  flourished.  But  when  the  women 
came  in  increasing  numbers,  and  with  them  many 
children,  another  problem  arose.  Women  born 
in  temperate  climes  suffer  more  in  the  Tropics 
than  do  men.  The  dry,  dry  heat  of  the  dry  sea- 
son is  succeeded  by  the  wet,  wet  heat  of  the  rainy 
months.  There  is  never  any  escape  from  that 
horrible,  hateful,  hellish  heat.  Is  it  to  be  baked 


180  THE  PANAMA  CANAL 

or  steamed?  The  changing  seasons  offer  no 
other  alternative.  And  the  Fear!  Not  for  a 
moment  may  one  forget  that  sickness  and  death 
stalk  in  the  jungle;  that  a  glass  of  water  or  an 
unscreened  door  may  be  the  end  of  it  all.  There 
is  no  normality,  no  relaxation,  no  care  free  rest 
for  the  woman  in  the  Tropics. 

At  Panama  her  housekeeping  duties  were  light- 
ened by  the  excellence  of  the  commissary  system, 
so  that  they  were  not  enough  to  keep  her  mind 
occupied.  She  became  homesick  and  hysterical. 

So,  then,  it  being  desirable  to  have  married 
men  on  the  job,  it  became  necessary  to  do  sortie- 
thing  to  keep  the  women  at  the  minimum  stage 
of  unhappiness.  The  Y.  M.  C.  A  clubhouse, 
with  their  gymnasiums,  their  libraries,  their  games, 
their  sports,  and  their  clubiness,  had  been  the 
substitute  for  home  offered  to  the  lonely  American 
man  at  Panama.  The  Civic  Federation  was  in- 
vited to  do  what  it  could  for  the  women.  It 
sent  an  agent  of  the  American  Federation  of 
Women's  Clubs  to  Panama,  who  organized  women's 
clubs,  and  these,  by  putting  the  women  to  work, 
made  them,  in  a  measure,  forget  the  Heat  and 
the  Fear. 

Miss  Helen  Varick  Boswell  visited  the  Isthmus 
in  the  fall  of  1907  and  assisted  the  women  in  form- 
ing their  clubs.  She  found  them  literally  hungry 
for  such  activities  and  they  responded  with  a 
will  to  her  suggestion.  The  result  was  frequent 
meetings  in  every  town  in  the  Canal  Zone  and 
innumerable  activities  on  the  part  of  the  women 
interested  in  club  work. 

The    transformation    was    most    remarkable 


LIFE  ON  THE  ZONE  181 

Where  almost  every  woman  on  the  Isthmus  seemed 
to  be  unhappy,  now  everyone  who  needed  an 
outlet  for  her  mental  and  social  instincts  found 
it  in  club  work.  Where  once  they  quarreled 
and  disputed  about  their  house  furnishings,  life 
on  the  Isthmus,  and  the  general  status  of  things 
on  the  Canal  Zone,  now  the  women  seemed  to  take 
a  happy  and  contented  view  of  things,  and  became 
as  much  interested  in  the  work  of  building  the 
canal  as  were  their  husbands,  their  fathers,  and 
their  brothers.  Looking  back  over  the  task,  and 
realizing  how  much  longer  the  married  men  stayed 
on  the  job,  and  how  much  more  essential  they 
were  to  the  completion  of  the  canal  than  the 
bachelors,  the  cares  of  the  canal  authorities  to 
keep  the  women  satisfied  was  a  master  stroke. 

When  the  club  movement  was  launched  one 
of  the  first  steps  was  to  organize  classes  in  Spanish. 
Women  from  every  part  of  the  Zone  attended  these 
Spanish  classes  and  took  up  the  work  of  learning 
the  language  with  zeal.  Comparatively  few  of 
them  had  any  opportunity  to  learn  Spanish, 
even  in  its  most  rudimentary  form,  from  household 
servants,  since  the  same  lethargy  that  character- 
ized the  native  men  of  Panama,  and  made  them 
totally  indifferent  to  the  opportunities  for  work 
on  the  Canal  Zone,  also  characterized  the  Panaman 
women,  with  the  results  that  most  of  the  Ameri- 
can households  at  Panama  had  English-speaking 
Jamaican  servants  instead  of  Spanish-speaking 
Panamans. 

The  servant  problem  was  not  as  serious  as 
it  is  in  the  average  American  city.  There  was 
always  a  full  supply  of  Jamaican  negro  women 


182  THE  PANAMA  CANAL 

ready  for  engagement  as  household  servants.  They 
were  polite  and  efficient.  Almost  without  ex- 
ception they  had  a  deeply  religious  turn  of  mind, 
although  they  might  transgress  the  Mosaic  law 
far  enough  to  substitute  plain  water  for  violet 
water  on  the  boudoir  table  of  their  mistresses. 
Usually  they  were  very  neat  of  person  and  very 
careful  in  the  manner  of  doing  their  work.  The 
wages  they  commanded  were  approximately  equal 
to  those  asked  in  the  ordinary  American  city. 

The  greatest  social  diversion  of  the  Isthmus, 
of  course,  was  dancing.  Every  two  weeks  the 
Tivoli  Club  gave  a  dance  at  the  Tivoli  Hotel. 
Trains  to  carry  visitors  were  run  all  the  way  across 
the  Isthmus  and  no  American  ever  needed  to 
miss  a  dance  at  the  Tivoli  Hotel  because  of  un- 
suitable railroad  accommodations. 

Each  small  town  had  its  own  dancing  clubs 
and  in  those  towns  where  there  were  Y.  M.  C.  A. 
buildings,  the  dances  were  held  in  them.  The 
new  Hotel  Washington  proved  a  very  popular 
rendezvous  for  the  dancers,  and  in  the  future  the 
big  functions  of  this  kind  probably  will  alternate 
between  the  Tivoli  at  one  end  of  the  canal  and 
the  Washington  at  the  other. 

The  university  men  maintained  the  University 
Club  in  the  city  of  Panama,  directly  on  the  water 
front.  This  club  frequently  opened  its  doors 
to  women  and  its  functions  were  always  regarded 
as  events  in  Isthmian  social  history.  In  Colon 
there  was  organized  several  years  ago  a  club  known 
as  the  Stranger's  Club.  This  club,  as  did  the 
University  Club  at  Panama,  welcomed  the  Ameri- 
can stranger. 


LIFE  ON  THE  ZONE  183 

The  Isthmian  Canal  Commission  always  looked 
carefully  after  the  religious  activities  of  the  people 
of  the  Canal  Zone.  Its  provision  of  places  of 
worship  and  facilities  for  getting  to  them  was 
strictly  nonsectarian,  and  directed  solely  to  giv- 
ing every  sect  and  every  faith  opportunity  to 
worship  in  its  own  way.  Several  chaplains  were 
maintained  at  Government  expense,  and  railroad 
and  wagonette  service  for  carrying  people  to  their 
places  of  worship  was  maintained  throughout  the 
years  of  the  American  occupation. 

The  West  Indian  negroes  were  provided  with 
churches  and  with  homes  for  the  leaders  of  their 
spiritual  flocks.  Church  buildings  were  erected 
at  every  settlement,  and  in  many  cases  were  so 
constructed  that  the  lower  story  could  be  used 
for  a  church  and  the  second  story  for  lodge  pur- 
poses.  These  buildings  were  70  by  36  feet,  witt 
lodge  rooms  60  by  36  feet. 

The  women  on  the  Canal  Zone  were  interested 
in  religious  work  from  the  beginning  of  their 
residence  there.  An  Isthmian  Sunday  School 
Association  maintained  church  extension  work. 
\Yhen  the  Women's  Federation  of  Clubs  finally 
disbanded,  in  April,  1913,  it  presented  its  library 
to  this  association  and  its  pictures  to  the  Ancon 
Study  Club.  There  was  an  art  society  at  Ancon, 
which  did  much  to  foster  art  work  on  the  Zone 
during  the  days  of  the  canal  construction.  The 
organization  of  Camp  Fire  Girls  extended  its 
activities  to  Panama,  and  many  leading  women 
there  contributed  both  means  and  time  to  help 
the  girls  on  the  Isthmus. 

The  women  of  the  Zone  did  not  fail  to  enlist 


184  THE  PANAMA  CANAL 

themselves  in  any  movement  for  good  in  their 
communities.  A  few  years  since  there  was  a 
little  blind  boy  on  the  Isthmus  and  the  Federa- 
tion of  Women's  Clubs  decided  that  he  ought  to 
have  better  educational  advantages  than  could 
be  provided  at  Panama.  Therefore,  they  agreed 
to  finance  his  going  to  Boston  to  enter  an  institu- 
tion for  the  education  of  the  blind.  When  the 
Federation  disbanded,  owing  to  the  gradual  de- 
parture of  members  for  the  States,  it  did  not  do  so 
until  it  had  created  a  committee  which  was  to 
continue  indefinitely  in  charge  of  the  education 
of  this  blind  boy. 

Many  secret  societies  existed  on  the  Isthmus, 
the  oldest  one  made  up  of  Americans  being  the 
Sojourners  Lodge  of  Free  and  Accepted  Masons, 
organized  in  Colon  in  1898.  There  were  Odd 
Fellows'  lodges  and  lodges  of  Redmen,  Modern 
Woodmen,  Knights  of  Pythias,  Elks,  Junior 
Order  of  American  Mechanics,  and  representative 
bodies  of  many  other  American  secret  orders. 
An  Isthmian  order  is  that  of  the  Kangaroos, 
whose  motto  is:  "He  is  best  who  does  best." 
This  order  was  organized  in  1907  under  the  laws 
of  Tennessee,  and  the  mother  council  was  organized 
at  Empire  the  same  year.  The  object  of  the 
Kangaroos  is  to  hold  mock  sessions  of  court  and 
to  extract  from  them  all  of  the  fun  and,  at  the 
same  time,  all  of  the  good  that  they  will  yield. 

The  men  on  the  Isthmus,  almost  completely 
isolated  as  they  were  from  American  political 
concerns,  never  allowed  their  interest  in  political 
affairs  at  home  to  become  completely  atrophied. 
There  was  a  common  saying  that  the  Panamans 


LIFE  ON  THE  ZONE  185 

were  the  only  people  on  the  Isthmus  that  could 
vote,  but  at  times  the  Americans  would  at  least 
simulate  politics  at  home  with  the  resulting 
campaigns  and  elections.  During  the  presidential 
campaign  of  1912  it  was  decided  to  hold  a  mock 
election  in  several  of  the  American  settlements. 
The  elections  were  for  national  offices  and  for 
municipal  offices  as  well.  There  were  a  number 
of  parties,  and  in  the  national  elections  there  were 
the  usual  group  of  insurgents,  progressives,  reac- 
tionaries, and  the  like. 

There  were  nominations  for  dog  catchers  and 
town  grouches,  while  the  party  platforms  abounded 
in  all  the  political  claptrap  of  the  ordinary  American 
document  of  like  nature.  Cartoons  were  cir- 
culated showing  the  Panama  Railroad  to  be  a 
monopolistic  corporation;  flaring  handbills  prov- 
ing that  the  latest  town  grouch  had  not  acquitted 
himself  properly  in  office;  statistical  tables  show- 
ing that  the  dog  catcher  had  allowed  more  dogs 
to  get  away  from  him  than  he  had  caught;  and 
all  sorts  of  other  campaign  tricks  and  dodges  were 
brought  into  play,  just  as  though  there  were  real 
issues  at  stake  and  real  men  to  be  elected.  At 
Colon  the  presidential  returns  showed  33  votes 
for  Taft,  200  for  Wilson  and  224  for  Roosevelt. 
There  were  204  votes  in  favor  of  Woman  Suffrage, 
both  state  and  national,  and  75  votes  against 
it. 

As  has  been  said,  when  the  American  first 
went  to  Panama  the  only  diversion  a  man  could 
find  was  to  go  to  a  cheap  saloon  and  meet  his 
friends.  It  was  a  condition  that  was  as  unsatis- 
factory to  the  men  themselves  as  it  was  to  the 


186  THE  PANAMA  CANAL 

moral  sentiment  of  those  behind  the  work,  and 
almost  as  dangerous  to  the  success  of  the  under- 
taking as  would  have  been  an  outbreak  of  some 
epidemic  disease.  This  led  the  commission  to 
urge  the  erection  of  clubhouses  in  several  of  the 
more  populous  settlements,  to  be  conducted  under 
the  auspices  of  the  Young  Men's  Christian  As- 
sociation, but  to  be  operated  on  a  basis  that  would 
bring  to  the  people  those  rational  amusements 
of  which  they  stood  so  much  in  need. 

From  time  to  time  clubhouses  of  this  type  were 
established  in  seven  of  the  American  settlements 
and  the  work  they  did  in  promoting  the  content- 
ment and  happiness  of  the  people  can  be  appre- 
ciated only  by  those  who  have  witnessed  the 
conditions  of  living  in  Canal  Zone  towns  where 
there  were  no  such  clubhouses. 

Almost  the  first  effect  of  the  construction  of  a 
clubhouse  was  a  heavy  falling  off  in  barroom 
attendance,  and  simultaneously  a  decline  in  the 
receipts  from  the  sales  of  liquor.  It  is  estimated 
that  these  receipts  fell  off  75  per  cent  within  a 
short  time  after  the  clubhouses  were  opened. 
The  men  who  had  been  buying  beer  at  25  cents 
a  bottle,  or  whiskey  at  15  cents  a  thimbleful, 
were  now  frequenting  the  clubhouses,  playing 
billiards,  rolling  tenpins,  writing  letters,  reading 
their  home  papers,  or  engaging  in  other  diversions 
which  served  to  banish  homesickness. 

When  the  Y.  M.  C.  A.  clubhouses  were  opened 
a  practical  man  was  put  at  the  head  of  each. 
While  no  one  would  think  of  card-playing  or 
dancing  at  a  Y.  M.  C.  A.  in  the  States,  both  were 
to  be  found  in  the  association  clubhouses  of  the 


LIFE  ON  THE  ZONE  187 

Isthmus.  Bowling  alleys,  billiard  rooms,  gym- 
nasiums, and  many  other  features  for  entertain- 
ment were  established  in  the  clubhouses.  Bowling 
teams  were  organized;  billiard  and  pool  contests 
were  started;  gymnastic  instruction  was  given; 
pleasant  reading  rooms  with  easy  chairs,  cool 
breezes,  and  good  lights  were  provided;  circulating 
libraries  were  established;  good  soda  fountains 
were  put  in  operation  where  one  could  get  a  glass 
of  soda  long  enough  to  quench  the  deepest  thirst; 
and  in  general  the  clubhouses  were  made  the  most 
attractive  places  in  town  —  places  where  any 
man,  married  or  single,  might  spend  his  leisure 
moments  with  profit  and  with  pleasure. 

Every  effort  was  put  forth  to  capitalize  the 
spirit  of  rivalry  in  the  interest  of  the  men.  The 
result  was  that  in  each  clubhouse  there  were 
continuous  contests  of  one  kind  or  another,  which 
afforded  entertainment  for  those  engaged  and 
held  the  interest  of  those  who  were  looking  on. 
Then  the  champions  of  each  clubhouse,  whether 
individuals  or  teams,  were  pitted  against  the 
stars  of  other  places,  and  in  this  way  there  was 
always  "something  doing"  around  each  clubhouse. 

In  addition  to  maintaining  a  supervision  over 
the  sports  of  the  Isthmus,  the  clubhouses  pro- 
vided night  schools  for  those  who  desired  to 
improve  such  educational  opportunities.  These 
night  schools  were  rather  well  patronized  by 
the  new  arrivals  on  the  Isthmus,  but  there  is 
something  in  that  climate  which,  after  a  man  has 
been  there  for  a  year,  makes  him  want  to  rest 
whenever  he  is  off  duty.  Going  to  night  school 
became  an  intolerable  bore  by  that  time,  so  very 


188  THE  PANAMA  CANAL 

few  men  kept  up  their  attendance  after  the  first 
year.  The  study  of  Spanish  was  found  to  be  one 
exception  to  this  rule,  for,  besides  the  satisfaction 
of  being  able  to  talk  with  native  Panamans 
and  the  Spaniards,  there  was  the  hope  of  financial 
reward.  Any  employee  who  could  pass  an  ex- 
amination in  Spanish  stood  a  better  show  of 
getting  promotion  in  the  service.  Besides,  the 
man  who  had  grit  enough  to  carry  through  a 
course  of  study  on  the  Isthmus,  with  its  enervating 
climate,  was  almost  certain  to  climb  the  ladder 
of  success  wherever  he  went. 

A  review  of  the  work  of  the  seven  Y.  M.  C.  A. 
clubhouses  for  1912  gives  a  good  idea  of  what 
they  did  during  the  entire  construction  period. 
It  required  a  force  of  42  Americans  and  64  West 
Indians  to  operate  these  seven  clubhouses.  Twelve 
of  the  Americans  were  paid  out  of  the  funds  of 
the  Canal  Commission  and  30  out  of  the  funds 
of  the  Y.  M.  C.  A.  Of  the  negro  employees  43 
were  paid  by  the  Canal  Commission  and  21  by 
the  Y.  M.  C.  A.  The  American  force  for  all 
seven  clubhouses  consisted  of  one  superintendent, 
four  secretaries,  four  assistant  secretaries,  one 
clerk,  ten  night  clerks,  six  bowling  alley  night 
attendants,  six  pool  room  night  attendants,  and 
seven  barbers.  At  the  end  of  that  year  there 
were  2,100  members  of  the  Y.  M.  C.  A.,  no  less 
than  58  per  cent  of  all  the  American  employees 
living  in  towns  having  clubhouses  being  members 
of  the  association. 

During  the  year  seven  companies  of  players  and 
musicians  were  engaged  to  provide  amusement 
at  the  clubhouses.  They  gave  85  entertainments 


LIFE  ON  THE  ZONE  189 

which  had  a  total  attendance  of  21,000.  Local 
talent  and  moving  pictures  provided  406  enter- 
tainments with  a  total  attendance  of  96,000. 
Amateur  oratorio  societies,  operatic  troupes,  min- 
strel troupes,  glee  clubs,  mixed  choruses,  vaude- 
ville and  black-face  sketches  were  organized 
during  the  year  through  the  efforts  of  the  mem- 
bers cooperating  with  the  secretaries.  These 
organizations  made  the  whole  circuit  of  the  Isth- 
mus. Weekly  moving-picture  exhibitions  were 
given  and  a  man  was  employed  who  gave  his 
entire  attention  to  them.  Carefully  chosen  films 
were  ordered  from  the  United  States,  special 
attention  being  given  to  educational  features. 

Special  tournaments  in  bowling,  billiards,  and 
pool  were  organized  and  gold,  silver,  and  bronze 
medals  were  awarded  the  winners.  Over  a  hun- 
dred thousand  bowling  games  and  nearly  300,000 
games  of  pool  and  billiards  were  played  during 
the  year.  Trained  physical  directors  were  em- 
ployed to  direct  the  gymnastic  exercises  at  the 
clubhouses  and  there  was  an  attendance  of  15,000 
at  these  classes  during  the  year.  A  pentathlon 
meet  was  held  at  Empire  for  the  purpose  of  de- 
veloping all-around  athletes.  Religious  meetings 
and  song  services  were  held  at  such  times  as  not 
to  interfere  with  the  organized  religious  work 
on  the  Zone,  the  average  attendance  at  214  meet- 
ings being  50  and  the  average  attendance  at  Bible 
and  discussion  clubs  52.  The  average  enrollment 
was  65  in  the  Spanish  class.  Forty-two  thousand 
books  were  withdrawn  for  home  reading  during 
the  year. 

Soft   drinks,  ice-cream,  light  lunches,  and  the 


190  THE  PANAMA  CANAL 

like  were  served  on  the  cool  verandas  of  the  club- 
houses, the  receipts  from  these  sales  amounting  to 
approximately  $50,000.  Nearly  4,000  calls  on 
hospital  patients  were  made  by  committees  for 
the  visitation  of  the  sick.  Boys  from  10  to  16 
years  of  age  were  allowed  special  privileges 
in  the  clubhouses,  and  the  secretaries  arranged 
several  outings  during  the  year.  The  total  boys' 
membership  was  146.  The  disbursements  from 
the  funds  of  the  Isthmian  Canal  Commission 
amounted  to  $50,000  and  those  from  clubhouse 
funds  amounted  to  $114,000.  The  total  receipts 
for  the  year  amounted  to  $118,000.  The  affairs 
of  the  clubhouses  were  in  the  hands  of  the  advis- 
ory committee  appointed  by  the  chairman  and 
chief  engineer  of  the  Isthmian  Canal  Commission. 

In  providing  amusements  the  Canal  Commission 
overlooked  no  opportunity  in  the  way  of  furnishing 
special  trains  and  affording  other  facilities  for 
encouraging  play  by  the  canal  workers.  Each 
town  had  its  ball  team  and  its  ball  park,  and 
there  was  just  as  much  enthusiasm  in  watching  the 
standing  of  the  several  clubs  in  the  Isthmian 
League  as  in  the  States  in  watching  the  perform- 
ances of  the  several  clubs  in  the  American  and 
National  leagues.  When  there  was  a  champion- 
ship series  to  be  played  there  was  just  as  much 
excitement  over  it  as  if  it  were  a  post-season  con- 
test between  the  Athletics  and  the  Giants. 

It  is  probable  that  better  amusements  will  be 
provided  under  the  permanent  regime  than  were 
during  the  construction  period.  With  ships  con- 
stantly passing  through  the  canal,  many  opera 
companies,  especially  those  from  Spain  and  Italy, 


LIFE  ON  THE  ZONE  191 

will  have  opportunity  to  stop  for  a  night  or  two  at 
Panama,  while  their  ships  are  coaling  or  shipping 
cargo.  In  Panama  City  there  is  a  splendid  theater 
built  by  the  Panaman  Government  largely  out  of 
funds  derived  from  payments  made  by  the  United 
States  on  account  of  the  canal  rights. 

As  the  major  portion  of  the  permanent  force  will 
be  quartered  at  Ancon  and  Balboa,  they  will  be 
able  to  drive  to  the  theater  or  take  the  street  car. 
A  new  street-car  system  has  just  been  established, 
and  those  who  can  not  afford  the  luxury  of  car- 
riages will  find  in  it  opportunities  for  taking  airings 
as  well  as  going  to  the  theater.  This  system  runs 
from  the  permanent  settlement  at  Balboa  through 
the  city  of  Panama  and  down  over  the  savannahs 
towards  old  Panama.  It  is  the  first  street-car 
system  ever  operated  on  the  Isthmus,  and  will 
probably  prove  much  more  satisfactory  than  the 
little,  old,  dirty  coaches  which  have  afforded  the 
only  means  of  transportation  on  the  Zone. 

The  building  of  a  number  of  roads  along  the 
canal  to  facilitate  the  movement  of  military  forces 
has  made  it  possible  to  get  a  satisfactory  use  of 
automobiles.  Agencies  already  have  been  opened 
for  a  number  of  the  lower-priced  cars  in  anticipa- 
tion that  a  large  number  of  the  canal  employees 
will  buy  automobiles  in  order  to  get  the  benefit 
of  these  good  roads.  There  are  few  places  where 
automobiling  affords  more  pleasant  diversion  than 
at  Panama.  After  the  sun  goes  down  the  evenings 
are  just  cool  enough  and  the  breezes  just  strong 
enough  to  make  an  automobile  ride  a  delightful 
experience. 

There  are  good  opportunities  for  lovers  of  hunt- 


192  THE  PANAMA  CANAL 

ing  and  fishing  on  the  Isthmus.  There  is  wild 
game  in  plenty  —  deer  abounding  in  the  entire 
region  contiguous  to  the  canal  and  alligators 
being  found  in  all  of  the  principal  streams.  There 
are  both  sea  and  river  fishing,  and  some  tapirs  and 
other  wild  animals  still  are  left  to  attract  the 
efforts  of  the  modern  huntsman. 

The  entertainment  headquarters  on  the  Canal 
Zone  under  the  permanent  occupation  will  be  the 
big  clubhouse  at  Balboa,  which  is  being  built  at  a 
cost  of  about  $50,000.  This  clubhouse  will  not 
only  have  all  of  the  features  of  the  clubhouses  of 
the  construction  period,  but  will  be  equipped  with  a 
large  auditorium,  with  a  complete  library  and 
with  every  facility  for  amusement  and  entertain- 
ment that  experience  on  the  Isthmus  has  called 
for. 

It  can  not  be  said  that  social  life  on  the  Isthmus 
during  the  period  of  canal  construction  was  ideal. 
Its  inspiration  was  to  be  found  in  the  desire  to  make 
the  best  of  a  bad  situation.  Men  and  women 
all  knew  that  their  stay  in  Panama  was  but  tem- 
porary, none  of  them  looked  upon  the  Canal  Zone 
as  home,  and  all  of  them  counted  time  in  two  eras 
—  Before  we  came  to  Panama,  and  When  we  leave 
Panama. 

Of  course  there  was  dining  and  dancing,  and  the 
bridge  tables  were  never  idle.  But  every  dinner 
hostess  knew  that  every  guest  knew  exactly  what 
every  dish  on  the  table  cost,  and  she  knew  that 
guest  knew  she  knew.  The  family  income  was 
fixed  and  public.  All  one  had  to  do  was  to  read 
the  official  bulletins. 

The  same  paternalistic  commissary  that  reduced 


LIFE  ON  THE  ZONE  193 

the  cost  of  living  and  made  housekeeping  so  easy, 
also  tended  with  socialistic  frankness  to  .bring 
everybody  to  a  dead  level.  It  was  useless  to 
attempt  any  of  the  little  deceits  that  make  life 
so  interesting  at  home. 

Although  the  American  is  a  home-loving  animal, 
he  managed  to  get  on  fairly  well  in  the  alien  at- 
mosphere of  the  Tropic  jungle.  He  brought  with 
him  his  home  life,  his  base  ball  and  his  soda  foun- 
tain. And,  considering  how  such  things  go  in  the 
Tropics,  he  managed  to  live  a  clean  life  while  he 
was  doing  a  clean  piece  of  work. 


CHAPTER  XVI 

PAST  ISTHMIAN  PROJECTS 


F  |  AHE  digging  of  an  Isthmian  Canal  was  a 
dream  in  the  minds  of  many  men  in 
JL  Europe  and  America  from  the  day  that 
Columbus  found  two  continents  stretched  across 
his  pathway  in  his  endeavor  to  discover  a  western 
route  to  India.  On  his  last  voyage,  as  he  beat 
down  the  coast  of  Central  America,  here  naming 
one  cape  "Gracias  a  Dios"  and  there  another 
"Nombre  de  Dios,"  testifying  his  thanks  to  God 
and  his  reverence  for  His  name,  he  touched  the 
Isthmus  near  the  present  Atlantic  terminus  of 
the  Panama  Canal.  He  little  dreamed  that  some 
day  ships  500  times  as  large  as  his  own  would  pass 
through  the  barrier  of  mountains  which  Nature 
interposed  between  his  ambitions  and  India. 

The  idea  of  a  canal  through  the  American  Isth- 
mus was  in  the  mind  of  Charles  V  of  Spain  as 
early  as  1520.  In  that  year  he  ordered  surveys  to 
ascertain  the  practicability  of  a  canal  connecting 
the  Atlantic  and  the  Pacific.  His  son,  Philip 
II  did  not  agree  with  him  about  the  desirability 
of  a  trans-Isthmian  waterway,  holding  that  a 
shipway  through  the  Isthmus  would  give  to 
other  nations  easy  access  to  his  new  possessions, 
and  in  time  of  war  might  be  of  greater  advantage 
to  his  enemies  than  to  himself.  He  invoked  the 

194 


PAST  ISTHMIAN  PROJECTS  195 

Bible  to  put  an  end  to  these  propositions  to  dig  a 
canal  across  the  American  Isthmus,  calling  to 
mind  that  the  Good  Book  declared  that  "what 
God  hath  joined  together  let  no  man  put  asunder." 

The  policy  of  Philip  was  continued  for  about 
two  centuries,  although  in  the  reign  of  his  father 
many  efforts  had  been  made  in  the  direction  of  a 
ship  waterway  across  the  Isthmus.  In  fact,  ships 
crossed  the  Isthmus  nearly  four  centuries  before 
the  completion  of  the  canal.  About  1521  Gil 
Gonzales  was  sent  to  the  New  World  to  seek  out 
a  strait  through  the  Isthmus.  He  sailed  up 
and  down  the  Central  American  coast,  entering 
this  river  and  that,  but  failing  of  course  to  find  a 
natural  waterway.  Not  to  be  outdone,  he  de- 
cided to  take  his  two  caravels  to  pieces  and  to 
transport  them  across  the  Isthmus.  He  carried 
them  on  the  backs  of  Indians  and  mules  from  the 
head  of  navigation  on  the  Chagres  River  to  the 
ancient  city  of  Panama.  There  he  rebuilt  them 
and  set  out  to  sea,  but  they  were  lost  in  a  storm. 
Still  determined  to  make  the  most  of  his  opportuni- 
ties, Gonzales  built  others  to  take  their  places  and 
with  these  made  his  way  up  the  Pacific  coast 
through  the  Gulf  of  Fonseca  to  Nicaragua,  where 
he  discovered  Lake  Nicaragua.  A  few  years 
later  another  explorer  made  a  trip  across  Lake 
Nicaragua  and  down  the  San  Juan  River  to  the 
Atlantic. 

Cortez,  the  conquistador  of  Mexico,  at  one  time 
was  ordered  to  use  every  resource  at  his  command 
in  a  search  for  the  longed-for  strait.  He  did  not 
find  it,  but  he  did  open  up  a  line  of  communication 
across  the  Isthmus  of  Tehauntepec,  following  prac- 


196  THE  PANAMA  CANAL 

tically  the  same  line  as  was  afterwards  followed 
by  Eads  with  his  proposed  ship  railway. 

From  those  days  to  the  time  when  the  United 
States  decided  that  the  canal  should  be  built  at 
Panama  and  that  it  should  be  made  a  national 
undertaking,  one  route  after  another  was  proposed. 
In  1886,  immediately  after  the  French  failure, 
the  Senate  requested  the  Secretary  of  the  Navy  to 
furnish  all  available  information  pertaining  to  the 
subject  of  a  canal  across  the  Isthmus,  and  Admiral 
Charles  H.  Davis  reported  that  19  canal  and  7 
railway  projects  had  been  proposed,  the  most 
northerly  across  the  Isthmus  of  Tehauntepec  and 
the  most  southerly  across  the  Isthmus  of  Panama 
at  the  Gulf  of  Darien,  1,400  miles  apart.  Eight 
of  these  projects  were  located  in  Nicaragua. 

In  1838  the  Republic  of  New  Granada,  which 
then  had  territorial  possession  of  the  Isthmus  of 
Panama,  granted  a  concession  to  a  French  com- 
pany to  build  a  canal  across  the  Isthmus.  This 
company  claimed  to  have  found  a  pass  through  the 
mountains  only  37  feet  above  sea  level.  In 
1843  the  French  minister  of  foreign  affairs  in- 
structed Napoleon  Carella  to  investigate  these 
claims.  That  engineer  found  no  such  pass  and 
reported  the  claims  to  be  worthless.  He,  in 
turn,  advocated  a  canal  along  the  route  followed 
by  the  present  Panama  Canal,  with  a  3-mile 
tunnel  through  Culebra  Mountain  and  with  18 
locks  on  the  Atlantic  slope  and  16  locks  on  the 
Pacific  slope.  He  estimated  the  cost  of  such  a 
canal  at  $25,000,000.  The  first  formal  surveys 
of  the  Panama  route  were  made  in  1827  by  J.  A. 
Lloyd.  He  recommended  a  combination  rail  and 


PAST  ISTHMIAN  PROJECTS  197 

water  route,  with  a  canal  on  the  Atlantic  side  and  a 
railroad  on  the  Pacific  side. 

The  first  serious  proposition  to  build  a  Nicaragua 
Canal  was  made  in  1779  when  the  King  of  England 
ordered  an  investigation  into  the  feasibility  of 
connecting  the  Nicaraguan  lakes  with  the  sea. 
A  year  later  Capt.  Horatio  Nelson,  destined  to 
become  the  hero  of  Trafalgar,  headed  an  expedition 
from  Jamaica  to  possess  the  Nicaraguan  lakes, 
which  he  considered  to  be  the  inland  Gibraltar 
of  Spanish  America,  commanding  the  only  water 
pass  between  the  oceans.  His  expedition  was 
successful  as  far  as  overcoming  Spanish  opposi- 
tion was  concerned,  but  a  deadlier  enemy  than 
the  Don  decimated  his  ranks.  Of  the  200  who 
set  out  with  Nelson  only  10  survived,  and  Nelson 
himself  narrowly  escaped  with  his  life  after  a  long 
illness. 

In  1825  what  now  constitute  the  several  coun- 
tries of  Central  America  were  embraced  in  one 
federation  —  the  Central  American  Republic.  It 
asked  the  cooperation  of  the  American  people  in 
the  construction  of  a  canal  through  Nicaragua. 
Henry  Clay,  then  Secretary  of  State,  favored  the 
proposition,  and,  in  1826,  the  Federation  entered 
into  a  contract  with  Aaron  H.  Palmer,  of  New  York, 
for  the  construction  of  a  canal  through  Nicaragua 
capable  of  accommodating  the  largest  vessels  afloat. 
Palmer  was  unable  to  command  the  necessary 
capital  and  the  concession  lapsed.  A  few  years 
later  an  English  corporation  sent  John  Bailey 
to  Nicaragua  for  the  purpose  of  securing  a  canal 
concession.  He  failed  to  get  the  concession  but 
was  later  employed  by  the  Nicaraguan  Govern- 


198  THE  PANAMA  CANAL 

ment,  which  again  had  become  independent,  to 
determine  the  most  feasible  location  for  a  canal 
across  Nicaragua. 

The  United  States  Government  became  deeply 
interested  in  Isthmian  Canal  projects  during  the 
Forties  of  the  last  century.  The  extension  of  the 
national  domain  to  the  Pacific  coast  made  the 
building  of  an  Isthmian  Canal  a  consideration  of 
prime  importance  to  the  United  States,  and  made 
it  a  dangerous  policy  to  allow  any  other  country 
to  acquire  a  dominating  hand  over  an  Isthmian 
waterway.  The  result  was  that  the  American 
Government  advised  the  British  Government  that 
it  would  not  tolerate  the  control  of  any  Isthmian 
Canal  by  any  foreign  power.  This  later  brought 
about  the  Clayton-Bulwer  treaty,  which  made 
neutral  the  proposed  Nicaraguan  Canal. 

In  1849  Elijah  Hise,  representing  the  United 
States,  negotiated  a  treaty  with  Nicaragua,  by 
the  terms  of  which  that  country  gave  to  the 
United  States,  or  its  citizens,  exclusive  right  to 
construct  and  operate  roads,  railways,  canals,  or 
any  other  medium  of  transportation  across  its 
territory  between  the  two  oceans.  The  con- 
sideration exacted  by  Nicaragua  was  that  the 
United  States  should  guarantee  the  independence 
of  that  country  —  a  consideration  that  was  then 
paramount  because  of  the  effort  being  made  by 
Great  Britain  to  gobble  up  the  "Mosquito  Coast" 
as  far  east  as  the  San  Juan  River.  The  United 
States  was  not  ready  to  give  such  a  guarantee  — 
although  a  half  century  later  it  did  give  it  to  the 
Republic  of  Panama  —  and  the  Hise  treaty  failed 
of  ratification  in  the  Senate. 


PAST  ISTHMIAN  PROJECTS  199 

A  little  later  Cornelius  Vanderbilt  became  in- 
terested in  a  canal  and  road  across  Nicaragua  under 
an  exclusive  concession  running  for  85  years. 
Modifications  of  this  concession  permitted  the 
Vanderbilt  Company  to  exercise  exclusive  naviga- 
tion rights  on  the  lakes  of  Nicaragua.  As  a 
result  the  Accessory  Transit  Company  established 
a  transportation  line  from  the  Atlantic  through 
the  San  Juan  River  and  across  Lake  Nicaragua, 
thence  by  stage  coach  over  a  13 -mile  stretch  of 
road  to  San  Juan  del  Sur  on  the  Pacific. 

In  1852  Col.  Orville  Childs  made  a  report  to 
President  Fillmore  upon  the  results  of  his  surveys 
for  a  Nicaraguan  Canal;  and,  if  the  United 
States,  in  1902,  had  elected  to  build  the  Nicaraguan 
Canal,  the  route  laid  out  by  Childs  would  have 
been  followed  for  all  but  a  few  miles  of  the  entire 
distance.  In  1858  a  French  citizen  obtained 
from  Nicaragua  and  Costa  Rica  a  joint  concession 
for  a  canal,  which  contained  a  provision  that  the 
French  Government  should  have  the  right  to  keep 
two  warships  on  Lake  Nicaragua  as  long  as  the  canal 
was  in  operation.  The  United  States  politely  in- 
formed Nicaragua  and  Costa  Rica  that  it  would 
not  permit  any  such  agreement  —  that  it  would 
be  a  menace  to  the  United  States  as  long  as  the 
agreement  was  in  force.  Upon  these  representa- 
tions the  concession  was  canceled. 

In  1876  the  first  Nicaraguan  Canal  Commission 
created  by  the  American  Congress  made  a  unan- 
imous report  in  favor  of  a  canal  across  Nicara- 
gua, after  it  had  investigated  all  the  proposed 
routes  from  eastern  Mexico  to  western  South 
America.  It  asserted  that  this  route  possessed, 


200  THE  PANAMA  CANAL 

both  for  the  construction  and  maintenance  of  the 
canal,  greater  advantages  and  fewer  difficulties 
from  engineering,  commercial,  and  economic  points 
of  view  than  any  one  of  the  other  routes  shown  to  be 
practicable  by  surveys  sufficient  in  detail  to  enable 
a  judgment  to  be  formed  of  their  respective  merits. 
When  the  first  French  Panama  Canal  Company 
began  its  work  all  other  projects  fell  by  the  wayside 
for  the  time  being,  just  as  all  other  plans  for  inter- 
oceanic  canals  were  abandoned  when  the  United 
States  undertook  the  construction  of  the  present 
canal.  After  that  company  failed,  however,  the 
Maritime  Canal  Company  of  Nicaragua  was  or- 
ganized in  1889  by  A.  G.  Menocal,  under  conces- 
sions from  the  Government  of  that  country  and 
Costa  Rica.  The  Atlantic  end  of  this  canal,  as 
proposed  by  the  Maritime  Canal  Company,  was 
located  on  the  lagoon  west  of  Greytown.  The 
Pacific  end  was  located  at  Brito,  a  few  miles  from 
San  Juan  del  Sur.  This  canal  company  built 
three-fourths  of  a  mile  of  canal,  constructed  a 
temporary  railway  and  a  short  telegraph  line, 
but  soon  thereafter  became  involved  in  financial 
difficulties  which  led  to  a  suspension  of  operations. 
Even  to  this  day  the  visitor  to  Nicaragua  may  see 
many  evidences  of  the  wrecked  hopes  of  that  period 
for  whatever  town  he  visits  he  finds  there  Americans 
and  Europeans  who  went  to  Nicaragua  at  the 
time  of  the  opening  of  the  work  of  building  a  canal 
by  the  Maritime  Canal  Company.  They  expected 
to  find  a  land  of  opportunity.  But,  with  failure 
of  the  canal  project,  they  found  themselves  in  the 
possession  of  properties  whose  value  lay  only  in 
staying  there  and  operating  them. 


PAST  ISTHMIAN  PROJECTS  201 

When  the  first  Isthmian  Canal  Commission,  in 
1899,  undertook  to  investigate  all  of  the  proposed 
routes  across  the  connecting  link  between  North 
and  South  America,  it  placed  on  the  Nicaraguan 
route  alone  20  working  parties,  made  up  of  159 
civil  engineers,  their  assistants,  and  455  laborers. 
The  entire  work  of  exploring  the  Nicaraguan  route 
was  done  with  the  greatest  care.  The  depth  of 
the  canal,  as  adopted  by  the  commission,  was 
35  feet  and  the  minimum  width  150  feet.  The 
locks  were  to  be  840  feet  long  and  84  feet  wide, 
and  of  these  there  were  to  be  eight  on  the  Pacific 
and  six  on  the  Atlantic  side.  This  canal  was  to 
be  184  miles  long.  At  the  Atlantic  end  there  was 
to  be  a  4  6 -mile  sea -level  section  and  at  the 
Pacific  end  a  12-mile  sea-level  section,  while  the 
water  in  the  middle  126-mile  section  was  to  be  145 
feet  above  the  water  in  the  two  oceans..  It  was 
estimated  that  it  would  cost  $189,000,000  to 
build  the  Nicaraguan  Canal. 

Although  the  distance  between  the  Atlantic 
and  Pacific  ports  of  the  United  States  would  have 
been  more  than  400  miles  shorter  by  the  Nicaragua 
Canal  than  by  the  Panama  Canal,  it  would  have 
taken  about  24  hours  longer  to  pass  through  the 
former  than  through  the  latter,  so  that,  as  far 
as  length  of  time  from  Atlantic  to  Pacific  ports 
was  concerned,  the  two  routes  would  have  been 
practically  on  a  par.  The  total  amount  of  material 
it  would  have  been  necessary  to  excavate  at 
Nicaragua  approximates,  according  to  the  esti- 
mates, 228,000,000  cubic  yards.  This  would  have 
been  increased,  perhaps,  by  half,  to  make  a 
canal  large  enough  to  accommodate  ships  such  as 


202  THE  PANAMA  CANAL 

will  be  accommodated  by  the  present  Panama 
Canal. 

The  three  great  trans-Isthmian  projects  may 
be  said  to  have  been:  The  Panama  Canal, 
the  Nicaraguan  Canal,  and  the  James  B.  Eads  ship 
railway  across  the  Isthmus  of  Tehauntepec. 
The  latter  proposition  seems  to  be  the  most  re- 
markable,, in  some  ways,  of  them  all.  In  1881, 
James  B.  Eads,  the  great  engineer  who  built  the 
Mississippi  River  bridge  at  St.  Louis,  and  whose 
work  in  jetty  construction  at  the  mouths  of  the  Mis- 
sissippi proved  him  to  be  one  of  the  foremost  en- 
gineers of  his  day,  secured  a  charter  from  the 
Mexican  Government  conveying  to  him  authority 
to  utilize  the  Isthmus  of  Tehauntepec  for  the 
construction  of  a  ship  railway  from  the  Atlantic 
to  the  Pacific.  His  plan  called  for  a  railway 
134  miles  long,  with  the  highest  point  over  700 
feet  above  the  sea,  and  designed  to  carry  vessels 
up  to  7,000  tons.  He  calculated  that  the  entire 
cost  of  the  railway  would  not  be  more  than  $50,000,- 
000.  His  plan  was  to  build  a  railroad  with  a  large 
number  of  tracks  on  which  a  huge  cradle  would 
run.  This  cradle  would  be  placed  under  a  ship, 
and  the  ship  braced  in  the  manner  of  one  in  dry 
dock.  Heavy  coiled  springs  were  to  equalize 
all  stresses  and  to  prevent  shocks  to  the  vessel. 
A  number  of  powerful  locomotives  would  be 
hitched  to  the  cradle  and  would  pull  it  across  the 
Isthmus.  Although  the  proposition  was  indorsed 
by  many  authorities,  it  seems  to  anyone  who  has 
crossed  the  Isthmus  of  Tehauntepec  that  it  was 
a  most  visionary  scheme. 

If  one  can  imagine  a  ship  railway  across  the 


PAST  ISTHMIAN  PROJECTS  203 

Allegheny  Mountains  between  Lewiston  Junc- 
tion and  Pittsburgh  on  the  Pennsylvania  Rail- 
road, or  between  Washington  and  Goshen,  Va., 
on  the  Chesapeake  &  Ohio  Railroad,  he  will  have 
a  very  good  idea  of  the  difficulties  which  would  be 
encountered  in  building  such  a  railway.  The 
present  Tehauntepec  railroad  is  188  miles  long. 
When  crossing  the  Cordilleras  there  are  numerous 
places  on  this  road  where  the  rear  car  of  the 
train  and  the  engine  are  traveling  in  diametri- 
cally opposite  directions.  The  road  is  well-built, 
and,  as  one  crosses  the  backbone  of  the  con- 
tinent, and  beholds  the  engineering  difficulties 
that  were  encountered  in  building  an  ordinary 
American  railroad,  he  can  not  help  but  marvel 
at  the  confidence  of  a  man  who  would  endeavor  to 
build  across  those  mountains  a  shipway  large 
enough  and  straight  enough  to  carry  a  7,000- 
ton  ship.  Yet  Captain  Eads  estimated  that  his 
shipway  could  be  constructed  in  four  years  at 
one-half  the  cost  of  the  Nicaraguan  Canal;  that 
vessels  could  be  transported  by  rail  much  more 
quickly  than  by  canal;  that  in  case  of  accident  the 
railway  could  be  repaired  more  speedily;  and  that 
it  could  be  enlarged  to  carry  heavier  ships  as 
business  demanded. 

He  declared  that  he  did  not  think  it  would  be 
as  difficult  to  build  a  ship  railway  across  the  Isth- 
mus of  Tehauntepec  as  to  build  a  harbor  at  the 
Atlantic  entrance  of  the  Nicaraguan  Canal.  His 
confidence  in  his  project  was  such  that  he  proposed 
to  build  a  short  section  of  the  road  to  prove  its 
practicability  before  asking  the  United  States 
to  commit  itself  to  the  project.  Commodore 


204  THE  PANAMA  CANAL 

T.  D.  Wilson,  at  that  time  Chief  Constructor  of 
the  United  States  Navy,  declared  in  a  letter  to 
Captain  Eads  that  he  did  not  believe  the  strains 
upon  a  ship  hauled  across  the  Isthmus,  as  Eads 
proposed,  would  be  greater  than  those  to  which 
ocean  steamers  are  constantly  exposed.  Gen. 
P.  T.  G.  Beauregard,  of  Confederate  Army  fame, 
declared  that  a  loaded  ship  would  incur  less 
danger  in  being  transported  on  a  smooth  and  well- 
built  railway  than  it  would  encounter  in  bad 
weather  on  the  ocean. 

A  prominent  English  firm  offered  to  undertake 
the  building  and  completion  of  the  necessary 
works  for  placing  ships  with  their  cargo  on  the 
railway  tracks  of  the  trans-Isthmian  line,  de- 
claring that  they  had  no  hesitation  in  guarantee- 
ing the  lifting  of  a  fully  loaded  ship  of  8,000  or 
10,000  tons  on  a  railway  car  to  the  level  of  the 
railroad  in  30  minutes,  if  the  distance  to  be  lifted 
was  not  over  50  feet.  The  death  of  Captain  Eads 
ended  this  picturesque  project. 

A  proposition  once  was  made  to  build  a  canal 
across  the  Isthmus  of  Tehauntepec.  This  would 
have  required  30  locks  on  each  side  of  the  Isth- 
mus of  25  feet  each,  and  these  locks  alone  would 
have  cost,  on  the  basis  of  the  locks  at  Panama, 
perhaps  as  much  as  the  whole  Panama  Canal. 

One  of  the  narrowest  parts  of  the  Isthmus  is 
that  lying  between  the  present  Panama  Canal 
route  and  the  South  American  border.  Three 
routes  were  proposed  in  this  section,  known  as  the 
Atrato  River  route,  the  Caledonia  route,  and  the 
San  Bias  route.  It  was  found  that  a  canal  built 
along  any  one  of  these  routes  would  require  a 


PAST  ISTHMIAN  PROJECTS  205 

r 

tunnel.  The  estimated  cost  of  building  a  tunnel 
35  feet  deep,  100  feet  wide  at  the  bottom,  and  117 
feet  on  the  waterline,  with  a  height  of  115  feet 
from  the  water  surface,  the  entire  tunnel  being 
lined  with  concrete  5  feet  thick,  would  approximate 
$22,500,000  a  mile.  The  cost  of  building  a  canal 
along  one  of  these  routes  would  have  been  greater 
than  that  of  building  either  the  Nicaragua  Canal 
or  the  Panama  Canal. 

The  question  of  an  Isthmian  Canal  will  probably 
be  forever  set  at  rest  at  no  distant  date.  In  an 
effort  to  forestall  for  all  time  any  competition  in 
the  canal  business  across  the  American  Isthmus, 
negotiations  are  now  under  way  whereby  the  United 
States  seeks  to  acquire  the  exclusive  rights  for  a 
canal  through  Nicaragua,  just  as  it  now  possesses 
exclusive  rights  for  a  canal  through  the  Republic 
of  Panama.  The  conclusion  of  the  work  at 
Panama  will  end  the  efforts  of  four  centuries  to 
open  up  a  shipway  from  the  Atlantic  to  the  Pacific 
across  the  American  Isthmus. 


CHAPTER  XVH 

THE  FRENCH  FAILURE 

ONE  writes  of  "the  French  failure"  at 
Panama  with  a  consciousness  that  no 
other  word  but  failure  will  describe  the 
financial  and  administrative  catastrophe  that 
humbled  France  on  the  Isthmus,  but  at  the  same 
time  with  the  knowledge  that  failure  is  no  fit  word 
to  apply  to  the  engineering  accomplishments  of 
the  French  era. 

The  French  fiasco  ruined  thousands  of  thrifty 
French  families  who  invested  their  all  in  the 
shares  of  the  canal  company  because  they  had  faith 
in  de  Lesseps,  faith  in  France,  and  faith  in  the 
ability  of  the  canal  to  pay  handsome  returns 
whatever  might  be  its  cost.  The  failure  itself 
was  due  primarily  to  the  fact  that  de  Lesseps  was 
not  an  engineer,  but  a  promoter.  The  stock  sales, 
the  bond  lottery,  the  pomp  and  circumstance  of 
high  finance,  were  more  to  him  than  exact  surveys 
or  frank  discussion  of  actual  engineering  prob- 
lems. 

From  the  first,  de  Lesseps  ignored  the  engineers. 
The  Panama  proposition  was  undertaken  in  spite 
of  their  advice,  and  at  every  turn  he  hampered 
them  by  impossible  demands,  and  by  making  grave 
decisions  with  a  debonair  turn  of  the  hand. 

The  next  factor  in  the  failure  was  corruption. 

206 


THE  FRENCH  FAILURE  207 

Extravagance  such  as  never  was  known  wasted 
the  sous  and  francs  that  came  from  the  thrifty 
homes  of  that  beautiful  France.  Corruption, 
graft,  waste  —  there  was  never  such  a  carnival 
of  bad  business. 

And  then  the  French  had  to  fight  the  diseases  of 
the  tropic  jungles  without  being  armed  with  that 
knowledge  that  gave  the  Americans  the  victory 
over  yellow  fever  and  malaria.  It  was  hardly 
to  be  expected  that  the  French  ever  would  dis- 
cover the  necessity  of  substituting  the  Y.  M.  C.  A. 
and  the  soda  fountain  for  the  dance  hall  and  the 
vintner's  shop,  if  the  canal  were  to  be  completed. 

But  the  engineers  did  their  work  well,  as  far  as 
they  were  permitted  to  go.  It  may  have  cost  too 
much  —  but  it  was  well  done.  The  failure  of  the 
French  Panama  Canal  project  was  due,  therefore, 
to  moral  as  much  as  to  material  reasons. 

Long  years  after  the  French  had  retired  de- 
feated from  the  field,  one  could  behold  a  thousand 
mute  but  eloquent  reminders  of  their  failure  to 
duplicate  their  triumph  at  Suez.  From  one  side 
of  the  Isthmus  to  the  other  stretched  an  almost 
unbroken  train  of  gloomy  specters  of  the  dis- 
appointed hopes  of  the  French  people. 

Here  a  half-mile  string  of  engines  and  cars; 
there  a  long  row  of  steam  cranes;  at  this  place  a 
mass  of  nondescript  machinery;  and  at  that  place 
a  big  dredge  left  high  and  dry  on  the  banks  of  the 
mighty  Chagres  at  its  flood  stage,  all  spoke  to  the 
visitor  of  the  French  defeat.  Exposed  to  the 
ravages  of  20  tropical  summers,  decay  ran  riot,  and 
but  for  the  scenes  of  life  and  industry  being  en- 
acted by  the  Americans,  one  might  have  felt  him- 


208  THE  PANAMA  CANAL 

self  stalking  amid  the  tombs  of  thousands  of  dead 
hopes. 

Almost  as  much  money  was  raised  by  the 
French  for  their  failure  as  was  appropriated  by 
the  Americans  for  their  success.  From  the  gilded 
palace  and  from  the  peasant's  humble  cottage 
came  the  stream  of  gold  with  which  it  was  hoped 
to  lay  low  the  barrier  that  divided  the  Atlantic 
and  the  Pacific.  At  first  the  French  estimated 
that  in  seven  or  eight  years  they  could  dig  a 
29-foot  sea-level  canal  for  $114,000,000.  After 
eight  years  they  calculated  that  it  would  cost 
$351,000,000  to  make  it  a  15-foot  lock  canal  and 
require  £0  years  to  build  it. 

Never  was  money  spent  so  recklessly.  For  a 
time  it  flowed  in  faster  than  it  could  be  paid  out 
—  even  by  the  Panama  Canal  Company.  When 
the  company  started  it  asked  for  $60,000,000. 
Double  that  amount  was  offered.  The  seeming 
inexhaustibility  of  the  funds  led  to  unparalleled 
extravagance;  of  the  some  $260,000,000  raised 
only  a  little  more  than  a  third  was  spent  in  actual 
engineering  work.  Someone  has  said  that  a 
third  of  the  money  was  spent  on  the  canal,  a  third 
was  wasted,  and  a  third  was  stolen. 

The  director  general  at  the  expense  of  the 
stockholders  built  himself  a  house  costing  $100,000. 
His  summer  home  at  La  Boca  cost  $150,000.  It 
came  to  be  known  as  "Dingler's  Folly,"  for  Dingier 
lost  his  wife  and  children  of  yellow  fever  and  never 
was  able  to  live  in  his  sumptuous  summer  home. 
He  drew  $50,000  a  year  salary,  and  $50  a  day 
for  each  day  he  traveled  a  mile  over  the  line  in 
his  splendid  $42,000  Pullman.  The  hospitals  at 


THE  FRENCH  FAILURE  209 

Ancon  and  Colon  cost  $7,000,000,  and  the  office 
buildings  over  $5,000,000.  Where  a  $50,000  build- 
ing was  needed,  a  $100,000  building  was  erected, 
and  the  canal  stockholders  were  charged  $200,000 
for  it. 

Supplies  were  bought  almost  wholly  without 
reference  to  actual  needs.  Ten  thousand  snow 
shovels  were  brought  to  the  Isthmus  where  no 
snow  ever  has  fallen.  Some  15,000  torchlights 
were  carried  there  to  be  used  in  the  great  cele- 
bration upon  the  completion  of  the  canal.  Steam- 
boats, dredges,  launches,  and  whatnot  were  brought 
to  the  Isthmus,  knocked  down,  and  taken  into 
the  interior  to  await  the  opening  of  the  water- 
way. The  stationery  bill  of  the  canal  company 
with  one  firm  alone  amounted  to  $180,000  a  year. 
When  the  Americans  took  possession  they  found 
among  other  things  a  ton  of  rusty  and  useless  pen 
points,  not  one  of  which  had  ever  been  used. 

Two  years'  service  entitled  employees  to  five 
months'  leave  of  absence  and  traveling  expenses 
both  ways.  There  was  no  adequate  system  of 
accounting  and  any  employee  could  have  his 
requisition  for  household  articles  honored  almost 
as  often  as  he  liked.  In  a  multitude  of  cases  this 
laxity  was  taken  advantage  of  and  quite  a  business 
was  carried  on  secretly  in  buying  and  selling 
furniture  belonging  to  the  company.  One  official 
built  a  bath  house  costing  $40,000.  A  son  of 
de  Lesseps  became  a  silent  partner  of  nearly  every 
large  contractor  on  the  Isthmus,  getting  a  large 
"rake-off"  from  every  contract  let. 

Near  the  summit  of  the  Great  Divide  the  Ameri- 
cans who  took  possession  in  1904  found  a  small 


210  THE  PANAMA  CANAL 

iron  steamer.  It  is  said  to  have  been  the  purpose 
of  the  canal  promoters  to  put  this  little  steamer 
on  a  small  pond  in  Culebra  Cut,  and  by  the  aid 
of  a  skillful  photographer  to  get  a  picture  showing 
navigation  across  the  Isthmus.  This  steamer  was 
hauled  by  the  Americans  to  Panama,  where 
during  the  years  of  the  American  construction 
work  it  did  service  in  carrying  the  sick  to  the 
sanitarium  at  Taboga. 

The  different  uses  to  which  this  steamer  was  put 
during  the  French  and  American  regimes  illus- 
trates the  different  aims  of  the  Americans  and  the 
French  in  connection  with  the  Panama  Canal. 
There  was  little  concern  about  the  health  of  the 
canal  workers  under  the  French,  in  spite  of  great 
liberality  ^  in  the  construction  of  hospitals.  The 
construction  work  was  let  out  to  contractors,  who 
were  charged  a  dollar  a  day  by  the  French  Com- 
pany for  maintaining  the  sick  members  of  their 
force  in  the  hospital.  Of  course,  the  contractors 
were  not  over  anxious  to  put  their  employees  into 
the  hospitals.  The  result  was  that  the  death 
rate  at  Panama  reached  almost  unprecedented 
proportions. 

This  was  aided  to  a  very  large  degree  by  the 
manner  of  living  obtaining  there  at  that  time. 
In  1887  Lieutenant  Rogers,  of  the  United  States 
Navy,  inspected  the  canal  work  and  reported 
that  the  laborers  were  paid  every  Saturday,  that 
they  spent  Sunday  in  drinking  and  Monday  in 
recuperating,  returning  to  work  on  Tuesday.  A 
prominent  English  writer  declared  after  a  visit  to 
Panama  that  in  all  the  world  there  was  not,  per- 
haps, concentrated  in  any  single  spot  so  much 


THE  MAX  OF  BRAWN 


THE  FRENCH  FAILURE  211 

swindling  and  villainy,  so  much  vile  disease,  and 
such  a  hideous  mass  of  moral  and  physical  abom- 
inations. 

Add  to  these  things  the  fact  that  no  one  then 
knew  of  the  responsibility  of  the  stegomyia 
mosquito  for  the  existence  of  yellow  fever,  nor 
that  the  anopheles  mosquito  was  the  disseminator 
of  malaria,  and  it  is  little  wonder  that  the  French 
failed.  The  hospitals,  instead  of  aiding  in  the 
elimination  of  yellow  fever,  became  its  greatest 
allies.  The  bedposts  were  set  in  cups  of  water, 
and  here  the  yellow-fever  mosquitoes  could  breed 
uninterruptedly  and  carry  infection  to  every 
patient.  Wards  were  shut  up  tight  at  night  to 
keep  out  the  "terrible  miasma,"  and  the  nurses 
went  to  their  own  quarters.  When  morning  came 
there  were  among  those  thus  left  alone  always 
some  ready  for  the  tomb. 

The  history  of  the  French  attempt  to  con- 
struct the  Panama  Canal  begins,  in  reality,  with 
the  Suez  Canal.  In  1854  Ferdinand  de  Lesseps, 
a  Frenchman  connected  with  the  diplomatic 
service,  saw  an  opportunity  to  revive  the  plans 
for  a  Suez  Canal  that  had  been  urged  by  Napoleon 
in  1798.  His  friend,  Said  Pasha,  had  just  suc- 
ceeded to  the  khediviate  of  Egypt,  and  his  pro- 
posals were  warmly  received.  The  building  of  the 
canal,  which  presented  no  serious  engineering 
problems,  was  begun  in  1859  and  completed  10 
years  later.  There  was  a  sordid  side  to  its  story, 
too;  but  as  the  losses  were  borne  chiefly  by  the 
Egyptians,  Europe  ignored  them  and  looked  only; 
to  the  great  success  of  the  canal  itself. 

As  a  result,  de  Lesseps  became  a  national  hero 


THE  PANAMA  CANAL 

in  France,  and  when  it  became  known  that  he 
contemplated  piercing  another  isthmus,  the  whole 
country  rose  to  his  support.  In  1875,  six  years 
after  the  Suez  Canal  had  been  opened,  and  as 
soon  as  France  had  recovered  her  breath  from  the 
shock  of  the  war  with  Prussia,  a  company  was 
organized  by  de  Lesseps  to  procure  a  concession 
for  the  building  of  a  Panama  Canal. 

Already  the  world,  as  well  as  France,  had  come 
to  regard  de  Lesseps  as  an  engineer,  rather  than 
as  a  promoter  of  stock  companies,  and  in  this  lay 
the  germ  of  the  disaster  that  was  to  overtake  the 
whole  scheme. 

In  1876,  Lucien  Napoleon  Bonaparte  Wyse, 
a  lieutenant  of  engineers  in  the  French  Army,  was 
sent  to  Panama  to  determine  the  most  feasible 
route  and  to  conclude  negotiations  for  the  con- 
struction of  a  canal  there.  He  made  a  perfunctory 
survey,  commencing  at  Panama  and  extending 
only  two-thirds  of  the  way  to  the  Atlantic  coast; 
nevertheless,  he  calculated  the  cost  in  detail  and 
claimed  that  his  estimates  might  be  depended 
upon  to  come  within  10  per  cent  of  the  actual 
figures.  However  weak  in  engineering  he  may 
have  been,  he  was  strong  in  international  nego- 
tiations, returning  to  France  with  a  concession 
which  gave  him  the  right  to  form  a  company  to 
build  the  canal,  and  which  gave  to  that  company 
all  the  rights  it  needed,  subject  only  to  the  prior 
rights  of  the  Panama  Railroad  Company  under 
its  concession.  The  concession  was  to  run  for 
99  years,  beginning  from  the  date  when  the  col- 
lection of  tolls  on  transit  and  navigation  should 
begin.  The  promoters  were  allowed  2  years  to 


THE  FRENCH  FAILURE 

form  the  company  and  12  years  to  build  the  canal. 
The  Government  of  Colombia  was  entitled  to  a 
share  in  the  gross  income  of  the  canal  after  the 
seventy-fifth  year  from  its  opening.  Four-fifths 
of  this  was  to  be  paid  to  the  National  Government 
and  one-fifth  to  the  State  of  Panama.  The  canal 
company  was  to  guarantee  that  these  annual 
payments  should  on  no  account  be  less  than 
$250,000. 

When  Wyse  returned  to  Paris  he  got  de  Lesseps 
to  head  the  project.  The  hero  of  Suez  summoned 
an  international  commission  of  individuals  and 
engineers,  known  as  the  International  Scientific 
Congress,  which  met  in  Paris,  May  15,  1879. 
There  were  135  delegates  in  attendance,  most  of 
whom  were  Frenchmen,  although  nearly  every 
European  nation  was  represented.  The  United 
States  had  11  representatives  at  this  congress. 
After  two  weeks'  conference  the  decision  was 
reached  that  a  sea-level  canal  should  be  con- 
structed from  Colon  to  Panama.  Only  42  of  the 
135  men  who  met  were  engineers,  and  it  has  been 
stated  that  those  who  knew  most  about  the  sub- 
ject found  their  opinions  least  in  demand.  M. 
de  Lesseps  dominated  the  conference.  Several 
members  who  were  radically  opposed  to  its  con- 
clusions, rather  than  declare  their  difference  from 
the  opinions  of  a  man  of  such  great  distinction  and 
high  reputation  as  de  Lesseps  enjoyed  at  that 
time,  absented  themselves  when  the  final  vote 
was  taken. 

After  it  was  determined  to  build  a  sea-level  canal, 
the  canal  concession  owned  by  Wyse  and  his 
associates  was  transferred  to  the  Compagnie 


THE  PANAMA  CANAL 

Universelle  du  Canal  Interoceanique  (The  Uni- 
versal Interoceanic  Canal  Company)  of  which  de 
Lesseps  was  given  control.  The  canal  company 
was  capitalized  at  $60,000,000.  The  preliminary 
budget  of  expenses  amounted  to  $9,000,000,  of 
which  $2,000,000  went  to  Wyse  and  his  asso- 
ciates for  the  concession.  The  organizers  were 
entitled  to  certain  cash  payments  and  15  per  cent 
of  the  net  profits. 

The  canal  company  soon  found  it  necessary  to 
acquire  a  controlling  interest  in  the  Panama  Rail- 
road. That  corporation  insisted  on  charging 
regular  rates  on  all  canal  business.  In  addition, 
it  possessed  such  prior  rights  as  made  the  Wyse 
concession  worthless  except  there  be  agreement  on 
all  matters  between  the  railroad  company  and  the 
canal  company.  The  result  was  that  the  canal 
company  bought  the  railroad,  and  its  rights,  for 
the  sum  of  about  $18,000,000. 

The  first  visit  of  de  Lesseps  to  the  Isthmus  was 
made  in  the  early  weeks  of  1880.  He  arrived  on 
the  30th  day  of  December,  1879,  and  was  met  by 
a  delegation  appointed  by  the  Government,  and 
one  nominated  by  the  State  Assembly.  There 
was  the  usual  reception,  with  its  attendant  cham- 
pagne and  conviviality,  and  a  fine  display  of  fire- 
works at  night.  The  next  day,  with  a  chart  be- 
fore him,  de  Lesseps  promptly  decided  where  the 
breakwater  to  protect  the  mouth  of  the  canal  from 
the  "northers"  sweeping  into  Limon  Bay  should 
be  located.  He  declared  that  in  the  construction 
of  the  canal  there  were  only  two  great  difficulties 
• —  the  Chagres  River  and  Culebra  Cut.  The  first 
he  proposed  to  overcome  by  sending  its  waters 


THE  FRENCH  FAILURE  £15 

to  the  Pacific  Ocean  by  another  route  —  a  project 
which  it  has  since  been  estimated  would  have  cost 
almost  as  much  as  building  the  canal.  The  second 
difficulty  he  thought  would  disappear  with  the 
use  of  explosives  of  sufficient  force  to  remove  vast 
quantities  of  material  with  each  discharge.  There 
was  a  great  hurrah,  and  an  international  celebra- 
tion during  de  Lesseps'  stay.  The  flags  of  all 
nations  were  prominently  displayed,  with  the 
single  exception  of  that  of  the  United  States. 

Count  de  Lesseps  was  over  70  years  old  when  he 
first  visited  the  Isthmus,  though  he  was  still 
active  and  vigorous.  Mr.  Tracy  Robinson  de- 
scribed him  as  "a  small  man,  French  in  detail, 
with  winning  manners  and  a  magnetic  presence. 
He  would  conclude  almost  every  statement  with, 
'The  Canal  will  be  made,'  just  as  a  famous  Roman 
always  exclaimed,  'Delende  est  Carthago/  He 
was  accompanied  to  the  Isthmus  by  his  wife  and 
three  of  his  seven  children.  Being  a  fine  horse- 
man, he  delighted  in  mounting  the  wildest  steeds 
that  Panama  could  furnish.  Riding  over  the 
rough  country  in  which  the  canal  was  being  lo- 
cated all  day  long,  he  would  dance  all  night  like  a 
boy  and  be  ready  for  the  next  day's  work  'as 
fresh  as  a  daisy." 

On  New  Year's  Day,  1880,  de  Lesseps  formally 
inaugurated  the  work  of  building  the  canal.  A 
large  party  of  ladies  and  gentlemen  visited  the 
mouth  of  the  Rio  Grande  where  the  first  shovelful 
of  sod  was  to  be  turned.  An  address  was  made 
by  Count  de  Lesseps,  and  a  benediction  upon  the 
enterprise  was  bestowed  by  the  Bishop  of  Panama. 
Champagne  flowed  like  water,  and  it  is  said  that 


216  THE  PANAMA  CANAL 

— fe^h. 

the  speechmaking  continued  so  long  that  the  party 
did  not  have  time  to  go  ashore  to  turn  the  sod, 
so  It  was  brought  on  board  and  Miss  Fernanda  de 
Lesseps  there  made  the  initial  stroke  in  the  digging 
of  the  big  waterway. 

Some  days  later  the  work  at  Culebra  Cut  was 
inaugurated.  Tracy  Robinson  thus  described  the 
scene:  "The  blessing  had  been  pronounced  by  the 
Bishop  of  Panama  and  the  champagne,  duly  iced, 
was  waiting  to  quell  the  swelter  of  the  tropical 
sun  as  soon  as  the  explosion  went  off.  There  the 
crowd  stood  breathless,  ears  stopped,  eyes  blink- 
ing, half  in  terror  lest  this  artificial  earthquake 
might  involve  general  destruction.  But  there 
was  no  explosion!  It  would  not  go!  Then  a 
humorous  sense  of  relief  stole  upon  the  crowd. 
With  one  accord  everybody  exclaimed,  'Good 
Gracious!'  and  hurried  away  for  fear  that  after 
all  the  dynamite  should  see  fit  to  explode.  That 
was  Fiasco  No.  1." 

After  de  Lesseps  left  the  Isthmus  he  toured  the 
United  States  where  he  was  everywhere  welcomed 
although  he  did  not  find  a  market  in  this  country 
for  his  stock. 

The  scientific  congress  estimated  the  cost  of  build- 
ing the  canal,  whose  construction  de  Lesseps  had 
inaugurated,  at  $214,000,000.  M.  de  Lesseps 
himself  later  arbitrarily  cut  this  estimate  to 
$131,000,000,  and  announced  that  he  believed 
that  vessels  would  be  able  to  go  from  ocean  to 
ocean  after  the  expenditure  of  $120,000,000.  He 
declared  that  if  the  committee  had  decided  to 
build  a  lock  canal,  he  would  have  put  on  his  hat 
,and  gone  home,  since  he  believed  it  would  be 


THE  FRENCH  FAILURE  217 

much  more  expensive  to  build  a  lock  canal  with 
twin  chambers  than  to  build  a  sea-level  water- 
way. There  were  those  who  declared  that  six 
years  was  the  utmost  limit  that  would  be  required 
for  building  the  big  ditch.  Others  asserted  with 
confidence  that  it  could  be  done  in  four  years. 

During  the  first  three  years  the  company  de- 
voted its  time  to  getting  ready  for  the  real  work. 
By  1885  the  profligate  use  of  the  money  subscribed 
by  the  French  people  brought  the  funds  of  the 
canal  company  to  a  very  low  ebb.  M.  de  Lesseps 
asked  for  permission  to  establish  a  lottery,  by 
which  he  hoped  to  provide  additional  funds  for 
carrying  on  the  work.  The  French  Government 
held  up  the  matter  and  finally  sent  an  eminent 
engineer  to  investigate.  This  engineer,  Armand 
Rosseau,  reported  that  the  completion  of  a  sea- 
level  canal  was  not  possible  with  the  means  in 
sight,  and  recommended  a  lock  canal,  plans  for 
which  he  submitted.  The  summit  level  of  this 
canal  was  to  be  160  feet,  reached  by  a  series  of 
seven  or  eight  locks.  After  this  plan  was  adopted, 
to  which  de  Lesseps  reluctantly  consented,  lottery 
bonds  of  a  face  value  of  $160,000,000  were  issued 
which  were  to  bear  4  per  cent  interest.  But  the 
people  failed  to  subscribe. 

At  the  outset  of  the  work  de  Lesseps  estab- 
lished a  bulletin  for  the  dissemination  of  informa- 
tion concerning  the  canal;  during  the  entire 
period  of  his  connection  with  the  project  this 
bulletin  was  filled  with  the  most  exaggerated  re- 
ports, and  the  most  reckless  mis-statements  in 
favor  of  a  successful  prosecution  of  the  work. 
By  1888  the  confidence  of  the  French  people  i» 


218  THE  PANAMA  CANAL 

de  Lesseps  waned.  Unable  to  raise  more  money, 
and  now  popularly  dubbed  the  "Great  Under- 
taker," he  found  himself  in  such  straits  that  he 
saw  the  French  Government  take  over  the  wrecked 
organization  by  appointing  a  receiver  with  the 
power  to  dispose  of  its  assets.  This  proved  a 
terrible  blow  to  the  people  on  the  Isthmus. 
Untold  hardships  befell  the  small  army  of  laborers 
and  clerks.  The  Government  of  Jamaica  repa- 
triated over  6,000  negroes.  The  Chilean  Govern- 
ment granted  40,000  free  passages  to  Chile,  open 
to  all  classes  except  negroes  and  Chinese,  and  for 
several  months  every  mail  steamer  south  took  away 
from  600  to  800  stranded  people  from  the  canal 
region.  Where  good  times  and  the  utmost  plenty 
had  prevailed  for  years,  the  Isthmus  was  now 
face  to  face  with  a  period  of  want  and  privation, 
its  glory  departed  and  its  hope  almost  gone. 

The  receiver  of  the  Panama  Canal  Company 
assisted  in  the  organization  of  another  company 
known  as  the  New  Panama  Canal  Company. 
With  a  working  capital  of  $13,000,000,  it  excavated 
more  than  12,000,000  cubic  yards  of  material. 
In  1890  it  found  itself  in  danger  of  losing  every- 
thing by  reason  of  the  expiration  of  its  concession. 
The  services  of  Lieutenant  Wyse  were  again 
brought  into  play,  and  he  secured  a  10-year 
extension  of  the  concession.  In  1893  another 
concession  was  granted,  with  the  provision  that 
work  should  be  begun  on  a  permanent  basis  by 
October  31,  1894,  and  that  the  canal  should  be 
completed  by  October  31,  1904.  Toward  the 
end  of  the  nineties,  it  was  manifest  that  the  con- 
cession would  expire  before  the  work  could  be 


THE  FRENCH  FAILURE  219 

finished,  so,  in  April,  1900,  another  extension  was 
arranged,  which  stipulated  that  the  canal  should 
be  completed  by  October  31,  1910.  The  New 
Panama  Canal  Company,  as  a  matter  of  fact, 
had  no  other  aim  in  view  than  to  keep  the  con- 
cession alive  in  the  hope  that  it  could  be  sold  to  the 
United  States. 

With  all  of  their  profligacy,  however,  the  French 
left  to  their  American  successors  a  valuable 
heritage.  What  they  did  was  done  with  the 
utmost  thoroughness.  The  machinery  which  they 
bequeathed  to  the  Americans  was  of  immense 
value.  There  was  enough  of  this  to  cover  a  500- 
acre  farm  3  feet  deep,  with  enough  more  to  build 
a  6-foot  fence  around  it  all.  The  French  equip- 
ment was  of  the  best.  Dredges  and  locomotives 
that  stood  in  the  jungle  for  20  years  were  rebuilt 
by  the  Americans  at  less  than  10  per  cent  of  their 
first  cost,  and  did  service  during  the  entire  period 
of  construction. 

Although  the  New  Panama  Canal  Company 
at  one  time  asked  $150,000,000  for  its  assets,  it 
finally  accepted  $40,000,000.  An  appraisement 
made  by  American  engineers  a  few  years  ago 
showed  that  the  actual  worth  of  the  property 
acquired,  aside  from  the  franchise  itself,  amounted 
to  about  $42,000,000. 

Count  de  Lesseps  lived  to  a  great  age.  His  last 
years  were  saddened  and  embittered  by  the  vol- 
umes of  denunciation  that  were  written  and 
spoken  against  him.  Certain  it  is  that  no  man 
ever  went  further  than  he  to  maintain  confidence 
in  a  project  that  was  destined  to  fail,  and  yet  his 
partisans  declared  that  his  sin  was  the  sin  of  over- 


220  THE  PANAMA  CANAL 

enthusiasm  and  not  of  dishonest  purpose.  Under 
the  torrents  of  abuse  that  fell  upon  his  head  his 
mind  weakened,  and,  fortunately,  in  his  last  days 
he  realized  little  of  the  immeasurable  injustice  his 
misplaced  zeal  and  overenthusiasm  had  wrought 
against  the  people  of  France, 


CHAPTER  XVIII 

CHOOSING  THE  PANAMA  ROUTE 

PROUD  as  Americans  now  are  of  the  success 
of  their  venture  at  Panama,  in  the  be- 
ginning there  was  by  no  means  a  general 
agreement  that  the  United  States  would  succeed 
where  France  had  failed.  Indeed,  the  French 
disaster  had  much  influence  in  strengthening  the 
position  of  those  who  favored  building  the  Amer- 
ican canal  through  Nicaragua. 

Prior  to  the  year  1900  little  thought  was 
given  by  the  American  people  to  any  project 
for  building  an  Isthmian  Canal  anywhere  else 
than  through  Nicaragua.  It  is  true  that  in 
1897  the  New  Panama  Canal  Company  became 
active  in  its  efforts  to  induce  the  United  States 
to  adopt  the  Panama  route,  but  these  activities 
made  little  impression  upon  public  sentiment 
before  the  outbreak  of  the  Spanish  American 
War.  During  that  war  interest  in  the  question 
of  an  Isthmian  Canal  waned  in  America,  and 
immediately  after  it  the  sympathy  which  France 
had  given  to  Spain  made  it  advisable  for  the 
Canal  Company  to  postpone  its  propaganda. 

In  his  annual  message  to  Congress  in  Decem- 
ber, 1898,  President  McKinley  recommended 
the  building  of  the  Nicaragua  Canal.  Two  days 
later  Senator  John  T.  Morgan,  of  Alabama,  made 

221 


222  THE  PANAMA  CANAL 

a  vigorous  speech  in  the  Senate,  in  which  he 
charged  that  the  transcontinental  railroads  of 
the  United  States  were  making  efforts  to  defeat 
the  canal  project.  This  charge  was  made  re- 
peatedly thereafter,  and  it  was  asserted  that  the 
railroads  espoused  the  cause  of  the  Panama  Canal 
upon  the  ground  of  choosing  the  lesser  of  two 
evils,  judged  from  their  standpoint.  Prior  to 
1900  both  Republican  and  Democratic  parties 
had  repeatedly  favored  the  construction  of  the 
Nicaragua  Canal  in  their  national  platforms,  and 
both  branches  of  Congress  had  voted  for  the 
canal  at  different  times. 

In  the  early  part  of  1899  the  Senate  passed  a 
bill  authorizing  the  construction  of  a  Nicaraguan 
Canal.  The  House  refused  to  act  on  the  bill, 
and,  at  the  instance  of  Senator  Morgan,  the 
Senate  attached  a  rider  to  the  rivers  and  har- 
bors bill,  appropriating  $10,000,000  to  begin  the 
building  of  the  canal.  This  passed  the  Senate 
by  a  vote  of  54  to  3.  The  amendment  was  de- 
feated in  the  House  and  the  matter  went  to  con- 
ference. If  the  House  conferees  stood  pat  in 
their  opposition  to  the  Senate  amendment,  the 
whole  rivers  and  harbors  bilj  would  be  defeated 
unless  the  Senate  conferees  yielded.  The  House 
conferees  remained  unshaken  in  their  opposition 
to  the  Nicaragua  Canal  provision,  and  were 
willing  to  wreck  the  whole  rivers  and  harbors 
bill  rather  than  to  authorize  the  beginning  of 
operations  in  the  construction  of  the  Nicaragua 
Canal  under  the  plan  framed  by  the  Senate. 

According  to  Philippe  Bunau-Varilla,  the  real 
secret  of  the  defeat  of  the  Nicaragua  Canal  proj- 


CHOOSING  THE  PANAMA  ROUTE      223 

ect  at  this  juncture  lay  in  a  dispute  between 
the  House  and  Senate  as  to  the  manner  of  build- 
ing the  canal.  The  Senate  wanted  to  do  it  by 
the  reorganization  of  the  Maritime  Canal  Com- 
pany, with  the  majority  of  its  board  of  directors 
appointed  by  the  President,  using  that  corpor- 
ation as  the  agent  of  the  Government  for 
constructing  and  operating  the  canal.  Represen- 
tative William  P.  Hepburn,  of  Iowa,  at  that 
time  Chairman  of  the  Committee  on  Interstate 
and  Foreign  Commerce,  contended  that  such  a 
plan  proposed  that  the  United  States  should 
masquerade  as  a  corporation,  instead  of  doing 
the  work  in  its  own  proper  person,  as  it  was  in 
every  sense  capable  of  doing.  He  asked  for 
what  purpose  the  Government  should  thus  con- 
vert itself  into  a  corporation,  making  of  itself 
an  artificial  person  and  taking  a  position  of 
equality  with  a  citizen?  He  further  pointed 
out  that  as  a  corporation  the  Government  might 
be  sued  in  its  own  courts,  and  fined  for  contempt 
by  its  own  judicial  servants. 

A  compromise  was  adopted  in  the  form  of  an 
appropriation  of  $1,000,000  to  defray  the  expen- 
ses of  an  investigation  into  all  of  the  various 
routes  for  an  Isthmian  Canal.  This  investi- 
gation was  to  have  reference  particularly  to  the 
relative  merits  of  the  Nicaragua  and  Panama 
routes,  together  with  an  estimate  of  the  cost  of 
constructing  each.  The  investigators  were  to 
ascertain  what  rights,  privileges,  and  franchises 
were  held,  and  what  work  had  been  done  in  the 
construction  of  the  proposed  canals.  They  were 
also  to  ascertain  the  cost  of  acquiring  the  inter- 


224  THE  PANAMA  CANAL 

ests  of  any  organizations  holding  franchises  on 
these  routes.  The  President  was  directed  to 
employ  engineers  of  the  United  States  Army  and 
engineers  from  civil  life,  together  with  such 
other  persons  as  were  necessary  to  carry  out 
the  purposes  of  the  investigation.  A  few  months 
later  he  appointed  the  first  Isthmian  Canal  Com- 
mission, consisting  of  Rear  Admiral  John  G. 
Walker,  Senator  Samuel  Pasco,  Alfred  Noble, 
George  S.  Morison,  Peter  C.  Hains,  William  H. 
Burr,  O.  H.  Ernst,  Louis  M.  Haupt,  and  Emory 
R.  Johnson. 

Thus  it  came  about  that  the  House  and  Senate, 
divided  only  upon  the  issue  of  the  proper  method 
of  building  the  Nicaragua  Canal,  reopened  the 
whole  question,  and  gave  to  the  Panama  Canal 
advocates  a  chance  to  make  a  fight  in  favor  of 
that  route.  The  advocates  of  the  Nicaragua 
Canal  were  not  satisfied,  however,  to  await  the 
discoveries  of  the  commission  Congress  had 
created.  On  May  2,  1900,  before  the  commis- 
sion made  its  report,  the  House  vo'ted  234  to  36 
in  favor  of  the  Nicaragua  route.  The  bill  went 
to  the  Senate,  where  it  was  favorably  reported  by 
the  Committee  on  Interoceanic  Canals.  Senator 
Morgan  made  a  formal  motion  for  the  immediate 
consideration  of  the  measure,  but  it  was  lost  by 
a  vote  of  28  to  21.  He  then  had  the  2nd  day  of 
December  following  fixed  as  the  date  for  again 
taking  up  the  matter.  His  committee  made  a 
report  roundly  scoring  the  representatives  of  the 
New  Panama  Canal  Company  for  their  activities 
in  favor  of  the  Panama  route. 

In  December,  1900,  Secretary  Hay  signed  pro- 


CHOOSING  THE  PANAMA  ROUTE      225 

tocols  with  the  ministers  of  Nicaragua  and  Costa 
Rica,  by  which  those  Governments  undertook  to 
negotiate  treaties  as  soon  as  the  President  of  the 
United  States  should  be  authorized  by  Congress 
to  acquire  the  Nicaragua  route.  In  the  following 
February,  Senator  Morgan  offered  an  amendment 
to  the  sundry  civil  appropriation  bill  authorizing 
the  President  to  go  ahead  with  the  construction 
of  the  canal.  When  Theodore  Roosevelt  became 
President  in  September,  1901,  he  recommended 
the  building  of  the  Nicaragua  Canal  in  his  official 
statement  of  policy. 

In  the  meantime  the  Isthmian  Canal  Com- 
mission had  been  repeatedly  attempting  to  get  the 
New  Panama  Canal  Company  to  state  for  what 
sum  it  would  sell  its  holdings  to  the  United 
States.  The  figures  finally  presented  placed  a 
value  of  $109,000,000  upon  the  property.  After 
this,  the  Isthmian  Canal  Commission  unanimously 
recommended  the  adoption  of  the  Nicaragua 
route.  Congress  again  took  up  the  matter,  upon 
a  bill  introduced  by  Representative  Hepburn, 
making  an  appropriation  of  $180,000,000  for  the 
construction  of  the  canal.  This  measure  was 
favorably  reported  by  the  House  Committee  on 
Interstate  and  Foreign  Commerce,  and  also 
secured  the  approval  of  the  Senate  Committee 
on  Interoceanic  Canals. 

A  few  days  later  a  formal  convention  was 
signed  in  Nicaragua  by  the  minister  of  foreign 
affairs  and  the  American  minister,  looking  to  the 
construction  of  the  canal  through  Nicaraguan 
territory.  A  week  later  the  Senate  ratified  the 
Hay-Pauncefote  treaty  with  Great  Britain.  On 


226  THE  PANAMA  CANAL 

January  7  the  House  of  Representatives  again 
took  up  the  matter  and,  in  spite  of  the  fact  that 
the  New  Panama  Canal  Company  had  decided 
to  accept  $40,000,000  for  its  property,  this  offer 
was  rejected  by  the  House  of  Representatives, 
which  passed  the  bill  authorizing  the  construction 
of  the  Nicaragua  Canal  by  the  overwhelming 
vote  of  309  to  2. 

After  the  rejection  of  the  offer  of  the  New  Pan- 
ama Canal  Company  by  the  House,  President 
Roosevelt  again  called  the  members  of  the  Isth- 
mian Canal  Commission  together,  and  asked 
them  to  make  a  supplementary  report  in  view 
of  the  offer  in  question.  On  a  motion  of  Com- 
missioner Morison  the  commission  decided  that, 
in  consideration  of  the  change  of  conditions 
brought  about  by  the  offer  of  the  company  to 
sell  its  property  for  $40,000,000,  the  Panama 
route  was  preferable.  It  has  been  stated  that 
Professor  Haupt,  Senator  Pasco,  and  two  other 
members  of  the  commission  were  reluctant  to 
abandon  the  Nicaragua  project;  that  President 
Roosevelt  had  made  it  quite  clear  to  Admiral 
Walker  that  he  expected  the  commission  to  ac- 
cept the  Panama  Canal  Company's  offer;  that 
Commissioners  Noble  and  Pasco  had  given  in, 
but  that  Professor  Haupt  stood  out;  and  that 
he  was  induced  to  sign  the  report  only  after  Ad- 
miral Walker  had  called  him  out  of  the  committee 
room  and  pleaded  with  him  to  do  so,  stating  that 
the  President  demanded  a  unanimous  report.  Pro- 
fessor Haupt  afterwards  publicly  admitted  the  truth 
of  this  story  in  a  signed  article  in  a  magazine. 

About  this  time  the  Senate  Committee  on  In- 


CHOOSING  THE  PANAMA  ROUTE      227 

teroceanic  Canals  appointed  a  subcommittee  of 
six  members  to  study  and  report  on  the  legal 
questions  involved  in  the  transfer  of  the  New 
Panama  Canal  Company's  title,  and  a  majority 
reported  that  the  company's  title  was  defective 
and  that  it  had  no  power  to  transfer.  It  was 
finally  decided  that  the  Senate  Committee  on 
Interoceanic  Canals  should  make  no  report  until 
all  of  the  members  of  the  Isthmian  Canal  Com- 
mission had  appeared  before  it  and  testified. 
This  delay  permitted  negotiations  between  the 
United  States,  the  New  Panama  Canal  Company, 
and  the  Republic  of  Colombia  looking  to  a  set- 
tlement of  the  question  of  title. 

The  New  Panama  Canal  Company  was  now 
thoroughly  in  earnest  in  its  desire  to  dispose  of 
its  holdings  to  the  United  States,  but  the  Repub- 
lic of  Colombia,  desiring  to  drive  a  good  bargain, 
held  aloof.  The  hope  of  the  situation  as  far  as 
the  Panama  route  was  concerned,  lay  in  Senator 
Marcus  A.  Hanna,  of  Ohio,  who  had  come  to  es- 
pouse the  Panama  route.  He  declared  he  would 
not  recommend  the  acceptance  of  the  propo- 
sals of  the  New  Panama  Canal  Company  unless 
a  satisfactory  treaty  could  be  obtained,  and  unless 
the  shareholders  of  the  company  would  ratify 
the  action  of  the  board  of  directors  in  making 
the  offer.  A  meeting  of  the  shareholders  was 
called  in  February,  1902,  at  which  the  Republic 
of  Colombia,  holding  a  million  dollars'  worth  of 
stock  in  the  company,  was  represented  by  a 
Government  delegate.  He  served  formal  notice 
on  the  company  that  it  was  forbidden,  on  pain 
of  forfeiture  of  its  concession,  to  sell  its  rights  to 


£28  THE  PANAMA  CANAL 

the  United  States  before  that  action  was  approved 
by  the  Colombian  Government,  there  being  a  clause 
in  the  concession  providing  that  in  the  event  of 
such  a  sale  to  any  foreign  Government  all  rights, 
titles,  and  property  should  revert  to  Colombia. 

When  the  Colombian  Government  took  up 
the  matter  it  showed  a  disposition  to  grasp  the 
lion's  share.  Its  minister  was  instructed  to  ex- 
act no  less  than  $20,000,000  from  the  New  Pan- 
ama Canal  Company  for  Colombia's  permis- 
sion to  transfer  its  concessions.  This  demand 
was  based  on  the  following  reasons:  First,  be- 
cause Colombia's  consent  was  essential;  second, 
because  Colombia  would  lose  its  expectation  of 
acquiring  the  Panama  Railroad  at  the  expiration 
of  its  concession  —  a  road  that  was  then  val- 
ued at  $18,000,000;  third,  because  under  the  pro- 
posed contract  with  the  United  States,  Colombia 
was  to  renounce  its  share  in  the  prospective 
earnings  of  the  canal,  which  might  amount  to 
a  million  dollars  a  year. 

Another  proposition  was  drawn  by  the  Col- 
ombian minister,  proposing  to  lease  a  zone  across 
the  Isthmus  of  the  United  States  for  a  period  of 
200  years  at  an  annual  rental  of  $600,000.  At 
another  time  the  Colombian  minister  declared 
that,  inasmuch  as  the  New  Panama  Canal  Com- 
pany had  taken  advantage  of  the  straitened 
circumstances  of  the  Colombian  Government  to 
obtain  a  six-year  extension  of  its  concession, 
which  was  really  what  the  canal  company  was 
about  to  sell  for  $40,000,000,  he  thought  Colom- 
bia ought  to  require  the  New  Panama  Canal  Com- 
pany to  pay  $3,000,000  of  the  $40,000,000,  for 


CHOOSING  THE  PANAMA  ROUTE      229 

what  the  company  gained  by  the  extension  of 
its  concession. 

On  January  30,  1902,  Senator  John  C.  Spooner, 
of  Wisconsin,  introduced  a  bill  in  the  Senate, 
authorizing  the  President  of  the  United  States 
to  build  an  Isthmian  Canal  at  Panama,  if  the 
necessary  rights  could  be  obtained.  If  those 
rights  could  not  be  obtained  the  President  was 
required  to  build  the  canal  on  the  Nicaraguan 
route.  The  Spooner  bill  provided  the  machinery 
for  the  construction  of  the  canal,  created  the 
Isthmian  Canal  Commission,  and  authorized  the 
expenditures  necessary  for  undertaking  the  proj- 
ect. Some  six  weeks  later  the  Senate  Committee 
on  Interoceanic  Canals  rejected  the  Spooner  bill 
and  presented  a  favorable  report  on  the  Hepburn 
bill,  which  authorized  the  Nicaragua  Canal. 

The  final  struggle  in  the  Senate  lasted  from 
June  4  to  June  19,  1902.  Senators  Morgan 
and  Harris  led  the  fight  for  the  Hepburn  bill, 
while  Senators  Hanna  and  Spooner  championed 
the  Spooner  measure.  The  fight  resulted  in  the 
passage  of  the  Spooner  bill  by  a  vote  of  32  to  24. 
The  disagreeing  votes  of  the  two  Houses  were  then 
sent  to  conference,  and  the  House  finally  receded 
from  its  position  in  favor  of  the  Nicaragua 
route,  and  the  Spooner  bill  became  a  law.  The 
situation  as  it  now  stood  was  that  the  Panama 
route  was  chosen  on  the  conditions  that  the  title 
of  the  company  be  proved  and  that  a  satisfactory 
treaty  with  Colombia  be  negotiated;  with  the 
alternative  of  the  adoption  of  the  Nicaragua  route 
in  default  of  one  or  the  other  of  these  conditions. 

Whatever  may  have   been  his  motives  —  in 


330  THE  PANAMA  CANAL 

the  light  of  events  which  have  followed  it  would 
seem  unjust  to  question  them  —  Senator  Hanna 
was  undoubtedly  responsible  for  the  revolution 
in  Congress  and  in  public  sentiment  which  re- 
sulted in  the  selection  of  the  Panama  route. 
M.  Banau-Varilla  declares  that  he  met  Myron 
T.  Herrick  in  Paris,  converted  him,  and  through 
him  met  Senator  Hanna,  whom  he  also  convinced. 
In  Crowley's  "Life  and  Work  of  Marcus  Alonzo 
Hanna,"  it  is  declared  that  a  series  of  interviews 
between  M.  Banau-Varilla  and  Senator  Hanna 
had  much  to  do  with  Mr.  Hanna's  decision  to 
make  a  fight  in  behalf  of  Panama.  It  was  claimed 
by  William  Nelson  Cromwell,  in  his  suit  for  fees 
against  the  New  Panama  Canal  Company,  that 
he  was  responsible  for  converting  Senator  Hanna 
to  the  Panama  project,  and  it  was  asserted,  also, 
that  he  furnished  the  data  from  which  Senator 
Hanna  made  his  speech  which  converted  the 
Senate,  and  the  House,  and  the  country,  and  led 
to  the  adoption  of  the  Panama  route. 

At  this  juncture  Providence  seemed  to  lend 
support  to  the  Panama  route,  for  one  of  the  many 
volcanoes  in  Nicaragua  became  active  and  did 
considerable  damage.  Occurrences  since  then 
have  borne  out  the  wisdom  of  avoiding  the  Nic- 
aragua route.  A  few  years  ago  the  city  of  Cart- 
ago,  only  about  a  hundred  miles  distant  from  the 
site  of  the  works  that  would  have  been  installed 
to  control  the  waters  of  Lake  Nicaragua,  was 
entirely  destroyed  by  an  earthquake. 

With  the  Spooner  bill  enacted  into  law,  the 
next  proposition  which  confronted  the  United 
States  Government  was  that  of  reaching  an  under- 


CHOOSING  THE  PANAMA  ROUTE      231 

standing  with  Colombia,  which  would  permit  the 
building  of  the  canal  at  Panama.  That  country 
was  reminded  on  every  hand  and  in  divers  ways 
that  unless  an  acceptable  treaty  were  forth- 
coming the  President  of  the  United  States  would 
be  forced  to  adopt  the  Nicaragua  route.  But, 
notwithstanding  these  reminders,  Colombia  still 
moved  slowly  in  the  matter.  After  being  repeat- 
edly urged  to  come  to  terms,  and  after  one  Col- 
ombian minister  to  the  United  States  had  been 
recalled  and  another  resigned,  the  Hay-Herran 
treaty  finally  was  negotiated. 

Before  Colombia  reached  the  stage,  however, 
where  it  would  agree  to  enter  into  negotiations 
with  the  United  States,  it  had  been  reminded  by 
its  minister  in  Washington  that  it  was  dangerous 
not  to  enter  into  an  agreement.  He  had  de- 
clared that  if  Colombia  should  refuse  to  hear 
the  American  proposal  that  a  new  treaty  be 
entered  into,  the  United  States  would,  in  retalia- 
tion, denounce  the  treaty  of  1846,  and  there- 
after view  with  complacency  any  events  which 
might  take  place  in  Panama  inimical  to  Colom- 
bia's interests.  He  had  reported  further  that  the 
United  States  would,  at  the  first  interruption  of 
the  railroad  service,  occupy  at  once  Colombia's 
territory  on  the  Isthmus  and  embrace  whatever 
tendency  there  might  be  toward  separation,  in 
the  hope  of  bringing  about  the  independence  of 
Panama.  This,  he  had  concluded,  would  be  a 
catastrophe  of  far  greater  consequence  to  Colom- 
bia than  any  damage  the  Republic  might  suffer 
by  the  ratification  of  a  treaty  with  the  United 
States  permitting  the  building  of  the  canal. 


THE  PANAMA  CANAL 

His  views  in  the  matter  were  strengthened 
by  a  suggestion  of  Senator  Shelby  M.  Cullom, 
of  Illinois,  that  if  Colombia  should  continue  to 
refuse  to  allow  the  United  States  to  build  the 
canal,  which  the  United  States  claimed  was  its 
right  to  do  under  the  treaty  of  1846,  the  American 
Government  might  invoke  a  sort  of  universal 
right  of  eminent  domain,  take  the  Isthmian  ter- 
ritory, and  pay  Colombia  its  value  in  accordance 
with  an  appraisement  by  experts. 

About  this  time  President  Roosevelt  wrote  a 
letter  to  his  friend,  Dr.  Albert  D.  Shaw,  of  the 
Review  of  Reviews,  in  which  he  said  that  he  had 
been  appealed  to  for  aid  and  encouragement  to 
a  revolution  at  Panama,  but  that  as  much  as  he 
would  like  to  see  such  a  revolution,  he  could  not 
lend  any  encouragement  to  it.  The  Republic  of 
Colombia  was  repeatedly  reminded  by  Secretary 
Hay  that  if  it  did  not  act  promptly  the  President 
would  take  up  negotiations  with  Nicaragua  and 
proceed  to  construct  the  canal  there.  Under 
these  conditions  Colombia  finally  agreed  to 
negotiate  the  Hay-Herran  treaty,  which  was 
afterwards  rejected  by  the  Colombian  Congress. 

It  has  been  asserted  that  President  Roosevelt 
took  the  view  all  along  that  under  the  treaty  of 
1846,  Colombia  had  no  right  to  prevent  the 
United  States  from  building  the  canal,  and  that, 
in  spite  of  the  provision  of  the  Spooner  Act  re- 
quiring him  to  proceed  with  the  construction  of 
the  Nicaragua  Canal  in  the  event  of  the  failure 
of  negotiations  at  Panama,  he  was  determined  to 
exhaust  every  possible  effort  before  giving  up  the 
Panama  route.  ^ 


CHAPTER  XIX 

CONTROVERSY   WITH    COLOMBIA 

SELDOM    in    the    history    of    international 
relations   has   a  controversy  afforded  more 
grounds    for    honest    difference    of    opinion 
than  the  issue  between  the  United  States  and 
Colombia,  growing  out  of  the  revolution  and  for- 
mation of  the  new  Republic  of  Panama.     The 
most   careful   and  unprejudiced  study  still  may 
leave  room  for  doubt  as  to  the  real  merits  of  the 
case. 

In  1903,  after  the  United  States  had  decided  to 
build  an  Isthmian  Canal,  preferably  at  Panama, 
but  if  that  route  were  not  available  at  Nicaragua, 
a  treaty  was  entered  into  at  Washington  between 
the  Governments  of  the  United  States  and  Colom- 
bia. This  Hay-Herran  treaty,  as  it  was  known,  in 
simple  terms  provided  that  the  United  States 
would  pay  Colombia  $10,000,000  in  cash,  and 
$250,000  a  year  after  the  completion  of  the  canal, 
if  the  Republic  of  Colombia  would  agree  to  permit 
the  New  Panama  Canal  Company  to  sell  its  con- 
cession and  property  to  the  United  States.  This 
treaty,  according  to  President  Roosevelt,  was 
entered  into  under  negotiations  initiated  by  the 
Republic  of  Colombia.  The  treaty  was  ratified 
by  the  United  States  Senate,  and  was  then  sent 
to  Colombia  for  its  ratification* 

283 


234  THE  PANAMA  CANAL 

At  the  time  the  treaty  was  pending  in  the 
Colombian  Congress,  the  President  of  the  Republic 
was  a  man  who  had  been  elected  Vice  President, 
but  who  had  kidnapped  the  President  with  a  troop 
of  cavalry  and  shut  him  up  in  an  insanitary  dun- 
geon where  he  soon  died.  The  Vice  President  thus 
became  the  head  of  the  Government.  Anyone 
who  knows  conditions  in  such  countries  as  Colom- 
bia, understands  that  a  President  has  no  use  for  a 
Congress  except  to  have  it  register  his  own  will. 
The  President  of  Colombia  at  first  advocated  the 
negotiation  of  the  treaty,  but  he  repudiated  it 
after  it  had  been  signed,  and  then  declared  that 
if  the  Colombian  minister  to  Washington  were 
to  return  to  Colombia  he  would  be  hanged  for 
signing  it.  The  result  of  this  change  of  front  was 
that  the  treaty  was  rejected  by  the  Colombian 
Congress.  All  sorts  of  stories  were  put  abroad 
in  Colombia  to  arouse  opposition  to  it.  One  was 
that  the  United  States  would  make  $180,000,000 
out  of  the  canal  deal  the  minute  the  treaty  was 
ratified  by  Colombia.  It  was  claimed  by  the 
Colombian  Government  that  the  constitutional 
prohibition  of  the  cession  of  territory  to  a  foreign 
state  would  have  to  be  changed  by  amending  the 
Constitution  before  the  Congress  could  legally 
ratify  the  treaty. 

How  little  the  President  of  Colombia  respected 
the  laws  of  his  country  is  shown  by  a  dispatch 
received  by  the  Government  at  Washington  after 
the  secession  of  Panama,  in  which  it  was  promised 
that  if  the  United  States  would  assist  Colombia 
in  putting  down  the  Panama  revolution,  the  next 
Colombian  Congress  would  ratify  the  rejected 


MIDDLE  GATES,  MIRAFLORES  LOCKS 


H.    O.    COLE 


CONTROVERSY  WITH  COLOMBIA      235 

treaty.  Or,  failing  that,  the  President  would 
declare  martial  law,  by  virtue  of  vested  consti- 
tutional authority  when  public  order  is  disturbed, 
and  ratify  the  canal  treaty  by  presidential  decree. 
If  the  Washington  Government  did  not  like  such  a 
proposal,  the  President  of  Colombia  would  call 
an  extra  session  of  Congress  and  immediately 
ratify  the  treaty. 

The  real  cause  of  the  failure  of  the  Hay-Herran 
treaty  is  not  difficult  to  discover.  The  concession 
of  the  New  Panama  Canal  Company  under  one 
of  its  renewals  expired  October  31,  1893.  It  was 
then  extended  for  a  year,  and,  in  1894,  was  ex- 
tended again  for  a  period  of  10  years.  Still 
another  extension  was  granted,  which  carried  the 
date  of  expiration  to  October  31,  1910.  This  last 
extension  was  granted  by  the  President  without 
the  consent  of  the  Colombian  Congress.  In  1903, 
when  the  Hay-Herran  treaty  was  pending,  the 
validity  of  this  last  extension  was  denied,  and 
the  assertion  made  that  on  October  31,  1904,  all 
of  the  rights  and  property  of  the  New  Panama 
Canal  Company  would  revert  to  the  Colombian 
Government. 

The  United  States  had  agreed  to  pay  to  the 
New  Panama  Canal  Company  $40,000,000  for  its 
concession  and  property.  According  to  Repre- 
sentative Henry  T.  Rainey,  of  Illinois,  who  for 
years  led  the  attack  in  the  United  States  Congress 
on  the  acts  of  President  Roosevelt  in  connection 
with  the  Panaman  revolution,  the  purpose  of 
Colombia  in  defeating  the  treaty  was  to  wait  until 
the  expiration  of  the  concession,  when  all  of  the 
property  of  the  canal  company  would  revert  to 


236  THE  PANAMA  CANAL 

Colombia,  and  it  could  then  sell  it  to  the  United 
States  and  get  the  $40,000,000,  or  any  other 
amount  it  could  persuade  the  United  States  to 
pay. 

Of  course,  the  New  Panama  Canal  Company  did 
not  look  upon  such  an  arrangement  with  any  degree 
of  complacency.  It  felt  that  it  was  a  deliberate 
scheme  upon  the  part  of  the  Colombian  Govern- 
ment to  mulct  it  out  of  its  property  and  its  rights. 
As  a  result  it  was  naturally  ready  to  lend  aid  and 
encouragement  to  any  movement  which  would 
circumvent  this  purpose  of  Colombia.  It  found 
conditions  in  Panama  just  what  it  might  have 
wished. 

The  people  of  Panama  felt  that  they  had  the 
same  sort  of  grievance  against  Colombia  that  the 
people  of  the  American  colonies  felt  they  had 
against  England  in  1776.  The  governors  of  the 
province  were,  with  few  exceptions,  sent  there 
from  Bogota,  and  were  entirely  out  of  sympathy 
with  the  people  of  Panama.  The  taxes  collected 
at  Panama  were  carried  to  Bogota,  as  a  rule,  and 
the  voice  that  the  people  of  the  Isthmus  had  in 
the  Government  of  Colombia  was  negligible. 
Furthermore,  they  felt  that  they  were  entitled 
to  their  sovereignty. 

After  the  countries  of  tropical  America  had 
thrown  off  the  yoke  of  Spain,  Panama  found  itself 
too  small  to  stand  alone,  and  accepted  an  invita- 
tion from  Bogota  to  put  itself  under  the  Govern- 
ment there  with  the  understanding  that  it  was  to 
retain  its  sovereignty.  It  soon  found  that  this 
agreement  was  not  respected  at  Bogota.  Almost 
immediately  there  were  attempted  revolts  and,  in 


-CONTROVERSY  WITH  COLOMBIA      237 

1840,  the  Isthmus  again  won  complete  indepen- 
dence. The  Confederation  of  New  Granada 
promised  that  the  people  of  the  Isthmus  should 
have  better  treatment,  and  it  was  set  forth  in  the 
constitution  of  New  Granada  that  Panama  was  a 
sovereign  state,  and  that  it  had  full  right  to  with- 
draw and  set  up  an  independent  government  at 
any  time.  In  1885  a  new  constitution  was  pro- 
claimed by  Colombia,  which  had  succeeded  New 
Granada,  and  this  constitution  deprived  Panama 
of  all  its  rights  as  a  sovereign  state,  and  made  it  a 
province  under  the  control  of  the  Federal  Govern- 
ment at  Bogota.  Upon  these  grounds  Panama 
claimed  that  she  was  a  sovereign  state  temporarily 
under  the  duress  of  a  superior  government.  After 
the  defeat  of  the  Hay-Herran  treaty  the  inhabi- 
tants of  Panama  knew  that  if  the  treaty  failed  and 
no  other  steps  were  taken,  the  Nicaraguan  route 
would  be  followed  and  Panama  would  become 
almost  a  forgotten  region  instead  of  a  land  of  great 
opportunity. 

The  consequence  was  that  the  Panamans  lent 
willing  ears  to  the  suggestion  of  the  representatives 
of  the  New  Panama  Canal  Company  that  they 
should  undertake  a  revolution  to  be  financed  by 
the  canal  company.  Two  representatives  of  the 
New  Panama  Canal  Company  working  along 
independent  lines  were  trying  to  bring  about  the 
revolution.  One  of  these  was  Philippe  Bunau- 
Varilla,  formerly  chief  engineer  of  the  Old  Panama 
Canal  Company,  but  who  had  become  estranged 
from  the  New  Panama  Canal  Company.  The 
other  was  William  Nelson  Cromwell,  for  years 
general  counsel  of  the  Panama  Railroad  Company, 


238  THE  PANAMA  CANAL 

and  who,  in  his  suit  against  the  New  Panama 
Canal  Company  for  an  $800,000  fee,  claimed  to 
have  engineered  and  directed  the  revolution. 
M.  Bunau-Varilla  had  some  stock  in  the  canal 
company  and  a  great  deal  of  pride  in  seeing  realized 
the  undertaking  to  which  he  had  committed  the 
best  years  of  his  life. 

Coming  to  New  York  on  another  mission,  he 
met  Dr.  Amador,  who  was  one  of  the  Panamans 
desiring  the  independence  of  his  country.  Ac- 
cording to  the  testimony  of  M.  Bunau-Varilla, 
which  is  borne  out  by  documentary  evidence, 
he  and  Dr.  Amador  worked  out  the  plan  for 
the  revolution.  He  declares  that  the  documents 
were  drawn  in  the  Waldorf-Astoria  Hotel  and  as 
far  as  they  were  written  in  Spanish,  they  were 
copied  letter  by  letter  by  an  English  stenographer 
who  knew  no  Spanish,  in  order  that  there  might 
be  no  possibility  of  the  secret  leaking  out.  He 
declares  that  the  whole  project  of  the  revolution 
as  it  was  carried  out  was  conceived  by  him  in 
cooperation  with  Dr.  Amador,  and  that  Wil- 
liam Nelson  Cromwell,  the  other  factor  in  the 
situation,  knew  nothing  about  what  was  going  on. 
He  also  asserts  that  William  Nelson  Cromwell  had 
promised  to  introduce  Dr.  Amador  to  Secretary 
of  State  John  Hay,  but  that  later  Dr.  Herran, 
the  representative  of  Colombia,  found  out  what 
was  going  on  and  wrote  a  letter  of  warning  to  Mr. 
Cromwell  as  to  the  consequences  which  would  come 
to  the  Panama  Railroad,  of  which  Mr.  Cromwell 
was  the  representative,  if  that  organization  should 
give  aid  or  comfort  to  the  projected  Panama 
revolution.  Thereupon,  according  to  M.  Bunau- 


CONTROVERSY  WITH  COLOMBIA      239 

Varilla,  Mr.  Cromwell  turned  his  back  upon  Dr. 
Amador,  although  it  has  been  claimed  by  some 
that  this  was  only  a  ruse  on  the  part  of  Mr.  Crom- 
well to  shield  himself  and  his  company  from  re- 
sponsibility. About  this  time  M.  Bunau- Varilla 
borrowed  $100,000  in  France  to  finance  the 
revolution,  pending  the  recognition  of  the  new 
Republic  by  the  United  States.  Other  money 
was  forthcoming  later. 

The  revolution  itself,  which  took  place  in 
November,  1903,  was  bloodless.  The  world 
knows  that  President  Roosevelt  forbade  the  Colom- 
bian troops  to  move  across  the  Isthmus,  while 
at  the  same  time  he  would  not  allow  the  revolu- 
tionists to  make  any  move.  A  similar  situation  had 
arisen  in  a  former  revolution  in  1902.  At  that 
time  the  Colombian  troops  were  disarmed,  and 
three  days  later  insurgent  troops  were  prevented 
by  United  States  marines  from  using  the  railroad 
and  were  actually  compelled  to  leave  a  train  which 
they  had  seized  and  entered.  The  principle  was 
enunciated  and  maintained  that  no  troops  under 
arms  should  be  transported  on  the  railroad,  no 
matter  to  which  party  they  belonged.  That  was 
because  to  permit  such  transportation  would  be 
to  make  the  railroad  an  adjunct  to  the  side  using 
it,  and  to  subject  it  to  attack  by  the  other  party. 
In  this  way,  if  the  Colombian  troops  used  it,  the 
insurgents  would  have  attacked,  and  the  United 
States  would  either  have  been  forced  to  permit 
such  an  attack,  which  might  suspend  traffic  on  the 
transit,  or  to  prevent  it  with  force,  which  would 
make  this  country  an  ally  of  Colombia  against 
the  insurgents.  On  the  other  hand,  if  the  insur- 


240  THE  PANAMA  CANAL 

gents  were  permitted  to  use  the  railroad,  Colom- 
bia would  attack  it,  and  in  that  case  the  United 
States  would  have  to  help  repel  the  attack  and  thus 
would  become  the  ally  of  the  insurgents.  It  was, 
therefore,  held  that  the  only  way  to  make  the 
road  absolutely  neutral  was  to  allow  neither  party 
to  use  it. 

This  was  the  doctrine  under  which  President 
Roosevelt  proceeded  in  1903.  Of  course,  the 
world  knows  that  this  was  tantamount  to  pre- 
venting Colombia  from  reconquering  the  Isthmus, 
if  that  were  possible.  It  is  claimed  by  some  that 
if  President  Roosevelt  had  allowed  the  insurgents 
to  use  the  railroad  in  1902,  Colombia  would  have 
been  defeated  in  that  revolution. 

At  the  time  of  the  revolution  it  is  said  that  the 
Colombian  garrison  which  espoused  the  cause  of 
the  Panamans  was  bribed  to  do  so;  that  their 
commander  two  days  afterwards  was  paid  $12,500 
for  his  services,  and  that  he  is  to  this  day  drawing 
a  pension  of  $2,400  a  year.  It  is  also  charged 
that  some  of  the  troops  who  could  not  be  bribed 
were  sent  into  the  interior  to  repel  an  imaginary 
invasion  from  Nicaragua.  It  is  asserted  that 
when  the  governor  of  the  State  of  Panama 
telegraphed  the  Colombian  Government  that 
Nicaragua  was  invading  Panama,  the  Bogota 
authorities  sent  additional  troops  to  the  Isthmus 
to  help  fight  Nicaragua,  and  that  this  accounted 
for  the  arrival  of  the  gunboats  from  Cartagena  on 
the  eve  of  the  revolution. 

At  the  time  of  the  coup  d'etat,  the  United  States 
was  living  under  a  treaty  made  with  Colombia  in 
1846,  guaranteeing  the  sovereignty  of  that  coun- 


CONTROVERSY  WITH  COLOMBIA      241 

try  over  the  Isthmus  in  return  for  the  recognition 
of  the  rights  of  the  United  States,  under  the  Monroe 
doctrine,  in  connection  with  the  building  of  a 
canal.  Under  this  treaty  it  was  mutually  agreed 
that  the  United  States  should  keep  the  Isthmian 
transit  free  and  open  at  all  times.  It  was  con- 
tended by  President  Roosevelt  that  he  was  only 
carrying  out  this  provision  when  he  refused  to 
allow  the  revolutionists  and  the  Federal  troops 
to  fight  along  the  line  of  the  Panama  Railroad, 
although  this  was  almost  the  only  ground  on  the 
Isthmus  on  which  military  operations  could  be 
prosecuted.  He  admitted  the  justice  of  the  con- 
tention of  the  Colombian  Government  that  the 
United  States  undertook  to  guarantee  the  sover- 
eignty of  Colombia  over  the  Isthmus  so  far  as 
any  alien  power  was  concerned,  but  denied  that 
it  was  ever  intended  that  the  United  States  should 
be  called  upon  to  guarantee  it  against  the  people 
of  the  Isthmus  themselves. 

Once  the  revolution  was  started  three  courses 
were  left  open  to  the  United  States:  One  was  to 
force  the  Panamans  back  under  Colombian  rule; 
the  second  was  to  let  the  two  sides  right  to  a 
finish;  the  third  was  to  recognize  the  indepen- 
dence of  the  Republic  of  Panama  and  forbid 
Colombia  to  land  troops  on  the  Isthmus.  Presi- 
dent Roosevelt  took  the  last  course.  A  breezy 
Western  congressman  remarked  in  defense  of  that 
course:  "When  that  jack  rabbit  jumped  I  am 
glad  we  didn't  have  a  bowlegged  man  for  Presi- 
dent!" The  result  of  the  revolution,  and  the 
recognition  of  the  independence  of  the  Republic  of 
Panama,  was  that  Colombia,  which  had  tried  to 


242  THE  PANAMA  CANAL 

grasp  everything  and  to  get  possession  of  the 
assets  of  the  New  Panama  Canal  Company,  now 
found  itself  without  anything. 

Colombia  ever  since  has  contended  that  the 
United  States  was  under  a  solemn  obligation  to 
protect  the  Colombian  sovereignty  over  the  Isth- 
mus —  an  obligation  that  has  been  assumed  in 
return  for  valuable  considerations  —  and  that  it 
had  been  despoiled  of  the  Isthmus  of  Panama 
under  the  very  treaty  that  had  guaranteed  its 
permanent  control  of  that  Isthmus.  It  further 
asserted  that  President  Roosevelt  had  been  a 
party  to  the  revolution  for  the  purpose  of  circum- 
venting the  stand  of  the  Republic  of  Colombia. 
It  made  a  long  plea  against  the  action  of  the 
United  States  and  urged  that  in  the  event  the 
two  countries  could  not  come  to  any  agreement, 
the  pending  questions  should  be  submitted  to  The 
Hague  for  adjudication.  Secretary  Hay  at  one 
time  proposed  that  a  popular  election  should  be 
held  on  the  Isthmus  to  determine  whether  the 
people  there  preferred  allegiance  to  the  Republic 
of  Panama  or  to  the  Republic  of  Colombia,  but 
Colombia  would  not  agree  to  that.  Secretary  Hay 
rejected  the  plea  of  Colombia  for  arbitration,  upon 
the  ground  that  the  questions  that  Colombia  pro- 
posed to  submit  affected  the  honor  of  the  United 
States  and  that  these  matters  were  not  arbitrable. 

After  Elihu  Root  became  Secretary  of  State,  he 
declared  that  the  real  gravamen  of  the  Colombian 
complaint  was  the  espousal  of  the  cause  of  Panama 
by  the  people  of  the  United  States.  He  said  that 
no  arbitration  could  deal  with  the  real  rights  and 
wrongs  of  the  parties  concerned,  unless  it  were  to 


CONTROVERSY  WITH  COLOMBIA      243 

pass  upon  the  question  of  whether  the  cause  thus 
espoused  was  just  —  whether  the  people  of  Pan- 
ama were  exercising  their  just  rights  in  maintain- 
ing their  right  of  independence  of  Colombian 
rule.  "We  assert  and  maintain  the  affirmative 
upon  that  question,"  he  declared.  "We  assert 
that  the  ancient  State  of  Panama  was  indepen- 
dent in  its  origin,  and  by  nature  and  history  a 
separate  political  community;  that  it  was  feder- 
ated with  the  other  States  of  Colombia  upon 
terms  that  preserved  and  continued  its  sovereignty, 
and  that  it  never  surrendered  that  sovereignty 
and  was  subjugated  by  force  in  1885."  Mr.  Root 
further  asserted  that  the  United  States  was  not 
"willing  to  permit  any  arbitrator  to  determine  the 
political  policy  of  the  United  States  in  following  its 
sense  of  right  and  justice  by  espousing  the  cause  of 
the  Government  of  Panama  against  the  Govern- 
ment of  Colombia." 

When  Mr.  Taft  became  President  it  was  his 
desire  to  adjust  our  controversy  with  Colombia. 
His  Secretary  of  State,  Philander  C.  Knox,  just 
before  leaving  office,  declared  that  he  had  spared 
no  efforts  in  seeking  to  restore  American-Colombian 
relations  to  a  footing  of  complete  friendly  feeling, 
but  that  these  efforts  had  been  rebuffed  by  the 
Colombian  Government.  He  declared  that  it 
was  undeniable  that  Colombia  had  suffered  by  its 
failure  to  reap  a  share  of  the  benefits  of  the  canal, 
and  that  the  Government  of  the  United  States 
was  entirely  willing  to  take  this  consideration  into 
account,  and  endeavor  to  accommodate  the  con- 
flicting interests  of  the  three  parties  by  making 
a  just  compensation  in  money.  In  pursuance  of 


244  THE  PANAMA  CANAL 

this  idea  three  treaties  were  negotiated:  One 
between  the  United  States  and  the  Republic  of 
Colombia,  one  between  the  United  States  and  the 
Republic  of  Panama,  and  one  between  the  Govern- 
ments of  Colombia  and  Panama,  all  three  being 
interdependent,  to  stand  or  to  fall  together. 
These  treaties  were  negotiated  at  the  instance  of 
Colombia  and  were  framed  with  every  desire  to 
accommodate  their  terms  to  the  just  expectations 
of  that  country.  They  were  accepted  by  the 
Colombian  Cabinet,  but  were  not  acted  upon  by 
the  Colombian  Congress. 

In  the  Knox  treaty  negotiated  with  Colombia 
in  1910  that  country  proposed  to  agree  to  a  popu- 
lar election  upon  the  separation  of  Panama  and  to 
abide  by  the  result.  The  United  States  offered 
to  sign  an  additional  agreement  to  pay  to  Colom- 
bia $10,000,000  for  a  permanent  option  for  the 
construction  of  an  interoceanic  canal  through 
Colombian  territory,  and  for  the  perpetual  lease 
of  the  Islands  of  St.  Andrews  and  Old  Providence, 
if  Colombia  would  ratify  the  treaties  with  the 
United  States  and  Panama.  This  proposition 
was  refused.  It  was  then  proposed  that  in  addi- 
tion to  the  $10,000,000  the  United  States  would  be 
willing  to  conclude  with  Colombia  a  convention 
submitting  to  arbitration  the  question  of  the 
ownership  of  the  reversionary  rights  in  the  Pan- 
ama Railroad  —  rights  which  the  Colombian 
Government  asserts  that  it  possesses.  In  addition 
to  this  the  United  States  offered  its  good  offices 
to  secure  the  settlement  of  the  Panama-Colombia 
boundary  dispute. 

All  of  these  propositions  being  rejected,  the 


CONTROVERSY  WITH  COLOMBIA      245 

Republic  of  Colombia  was  asked  if  it  would  be 
willing  to  accept  $10,000,000  outright,  in  satis- 
faction of  its  claims  against  the  United  States. 
This  was  also  refused. 

Acting  upon  his  own  authority,  the  American 
minister  then  inquired  if  Colombia  would  accept 
$25,000,000,  the  good  offices  of  the  United  States 
in  its  boundary  controversy  with  Panama,  the 
arbitration  of  the  question  of  the  reversionary 
rights  in  the  Panama  Railroad,  and  the  gift  of 
preferential  rights  in  the  use  of  the  canal  —  all 
these  in  satisfaction  of  its  claims.  The  Colombian 
Government  replied  that  it  would  not  do  this  and 
that  it  did  not  care  to  negotiate  any  further  with 
the  Taft  administration,  preferring  to  deal  with 
the  incoming  Wilson  administratigUt 


CHAPTER  XX 

RELATIONS  WITH    PANAMA 

WHEN  the  people  of  the  Isthmus  of  Panama 
revolted  against  the  Government  of 
Colombia,  they  fully  realized  that  almost 
their  only  hope  of  maintaining  an  independent 
government  was  to  secure  the  building  of  the 
Panama  Canal  by  the  United  States.  Therefore, 
they  were  in  a  mood  to  ratify  a  treaty  which  would 
meet  every  condition  demanded  by  the  Govern- 
ment of  the  United  States. 

The  treaty,  negotiated  and  ratified  in  1904,  gave 
to  the  United  States  every  right  it  could  have 
desired  or  which  it  could  have  possessed  had  it 
taken  over  the  whole  Isthmus  itself.  It  was 
negotiated  by  John  Hay,  Secretary  of  State,  repre- 
senting the  United  States,  and  Philippe  Bunau- 
Varilla,  representing  the  Government  of  Panama. 
As  the  latter  was  a  stockholder  in  the  New  French 
Canal  Company,  whose  assets  could  be  realized 
upon  only  through  the  success  of  the  treaty  nego- 
tiations, it  naturally  followed  that  he  would  put 
nothing  in  the  way  of  the  desires  of  the  United 
States. 

The  treaty  gave  to  the  United  States  most 
unusual  rights.  For  instance,  in  no  other  coun- 
try on  earth  does  one  nation  possess  ultimate 
jurisdiction  over  the  capital  of  another  nation;  yet 

246 


RELATIONS  WITH  PANAMA  247 

this  is  what  the  United  States  possesses  at  Panama. 
The  first  consideration  of  the  treaty  was  the  estab- 
lishment of  the  Canal  Zone.  This  gave  to  the 
United  States  a  territory  5  miles  beyond  the  cen- 
ter line  of  the  canal  on  either  side,  and  3  miles 
beyond  its  deep  water  ends,  with  the  exception  of 
the  cities  of  Colon  and  Panama,  to  hold  in  per- 
petuity with  all  rights,  powers,  and  authority 
that  the  United  States  would  possess  if  it  were 
sovereign,  and  to  the  entire  exclusion  of  the  exer- 
cise of  any  sovereign  rights,  powers,  or  authority 
by  the  Republic  of  Panama. 

Further  than  this,  it  gave  to  the  United  States 
the  same  rights  with  respect  to  any  land,  or  land 
under  water,  outside  of  the  Canal  Zone  necessary 
and  convenient  for  the  canal  itself,  or  any  auxiliary 
canals  or  other  works  required  in  its  operations. 

Further  yet,  the  Republic  granted  in  perpetuity 
a  canal  monopoly  throughout  its  entire  territory, 
and  also  monopolies  of  railroad  and  other  means 
of  communication  between  the  two  oceans. 

Under  the  terms  of  the  treaty  the  cities  of 
Panama  and  Colon  are  required  to  comply  in  per- 
petuity with  all  sanitary  ordinances,  whether  cura- 
tive or  preventive,  which  the  United  States  may 
promulgate.  The  Republic  of  Panama  also 
agrees  that  if  it  can  not  enforce  these  ordinances, 
the  United  States  become  vested  with  the  power 
to  enforce  them.  The  same  is  true  with  reference 
to  the  maintenance  of  order.  The  Republic  of 
Panama  agrees  to  maintain  order,  but  gives  to  the 
United  States  not  only  the  right  to  step  in  with 
American  forces  and  restore  it,  but  also  to  deter- 
mine when  such  action  is  necessary., 


248  THE  PANAMA  CANAL 

The  treaty  between  the  two  countries  further 
provides  that  the  United  States  has  the  right  to 
acquire  by  condemnation  any  property  it  may 
need  for  canal  purposes  in  the  cities  of  Panama 
and  Colon.  The  Republic  of  Panama  also  grants 
to  the  United  States  all  rights  it  has  or  may  acquire 
to  the  property  of  the  New  Panama  Canal  Com- 
pany and  of  the  Panama  Railroad,  except  such 
lands  as  lie  outside  of  the  Canal  Zone  and  the  cities 
of  Panama  and  Colon,  not  needed  for  the  purposes 
of  building  the  canal.  The  Republic  guarantees 
to  the  United  States  every  title  as  absolute  and 
free  from  any  present  or  reversionary  interest  or 
claim.  It  will  be  seen  from  all  this  that  the 
United  States  did  not  overlook  any  opportunity 
to  make  sure  that  it  had  all  of  the  powers  necessary 
to  build  a  canal. 

It  is  also  agreed  by  the  Panama  Government 
that  no  dues  of  any  kind  ever  shall  be  collected  by 
it  from  vessels  passing  through  or  using  the  canal, 
or  from  vessels  belonging  to  the  United  States 
Government.  All  employees  of  the  canal  are 
exempted  from  taxation,  whether  living  inside  or 
outside  the  Zone.  The  Republic  grants  to  the 
United  States  the  use  of  all  its  rivers,  streams, 
lakes,  and  other  bodies  of  water  for  purposes  of 
navigation,  water  supply,  and  other  needs  of  the 
canal.  It  also  agrees  to  sell  or  lease  to  the  United 
States  any  of  its  lands  on  either  coast  for  use  for 
naval  bases  or  coaling  stations. 

The  Republic  of  Panama  further  agrees  that 
the  United  States  shall  have  the  right  to  import 
commodities  for  the  use  of  the  Canal  Commission 
and  its  employees,  free  of  charge,  and  that  it 


RELATIONS  WITH  PANAMA  249 

shall  have  the  right  to  bring  laborers  of  any  na- 
tionality into  the  Canal  Zone. 

In  return  for  all  of  these  concessions  the  United 
States  gives  to  the  Republic  of  Panama  many 
valuable  considerations.  Most  vital  of  all,  it 
guarantees  the  independence  of  the  Republic. 
This  means  that  the  Republic  of  Panama  is  to- 
day practically  the  possessor  of  an  army  and  a 
navy  as  large  as  the  United  States  can  put  into  the 
field  and  upon  the  seas.  The  only  aggressor  that 
Panama  need  fear  is  her  benefactor. 

The  second  consideration  involved  the  payment 
of  $10,000,000  cash  to  the  Republic,  and  a  per- 
petual annual  payment  of  a  quarter  of  a  million 
dollars  beginning  with  the  year  1913.  The  ten- 
million-dollar  cash  payment  gave  the  impover- 
ished new-born  government  a  chance  to  get  on  its 
feet,  and  from  this  time  forward  the  Panaman 
Government  can  look  to  the  United  States  for 
the  major  portion  of  its  necessary  revenues. 

Under  the  terms  of  the  treaty  the  United  States 
undertakes  to  give  free  passage  to  any  warships 
belonging  to  the  Republic  of  Panama  when  going 
through  the  canal,  and  also  agrees  that  the  canal 
shall  be  neutral.  It  also  agrees  to  provide  free 
transportation  over  the  Panama  Railroad  for 
persons  in  the  service  of  the  Government  of  Pan- 
ama, and  for  the  munitions  of  war  of  the  Republic. 
It  also  allows  the  Republic  of  Panama  to  trans- 
mit over  its  telegraph  and  telephone  lines  its 
message  at  rates  not  higher  than  those  charged 
United  States  officials  for  their  private  messages. 

Another  stipulation  of  the  treaty  provides  that 
it  shall  not  invalidate  the  titles  and  rights  of  pri- 


250  THE  PANAMA  CANAL 

vate  landholders  and  owners  of  private  property, 
nor  of  the  right  of  way  over  public  roads  of  the 
Zone  unless  they  conflict  with  the  rights  of  the 
United  States,  when  the  latter  shall  be  regarded  as 
superior.  No  part  of  the  work  of  building  or 
operating  the  canal,  however,  at  any  time  may  be 
impeded  by  any  claims,  whether  public  or  private. 
A  commission  is  provided,  whose  duty  it  shall  be 
to  pass  upon  the  claims  of  those  whose  land  or 
properties  are  taken  from  them  for  the  purpose 
of  the  construction  or  operation  of  the  canal. 

In  carrying  out  the  terms  of  the  treaty  the  first 
step  taken  by  the  Americans  was  to  "clean  up" 
the  cities  of  Panama  and  Colon.  Remarkable 
changes  were  wrought  by  the  establishment  of 
water  and  sewerage  systems,  and  by  street  im- 
provements. For  several  years  preceding  the 
acquisition  of  the  Canal  Zone,  and  the  sanitization 
of  the  cities  of  Panama  and  Colon,  the  late  W.  I. 
Buchanan  was  the  United  States  minister  to  Colom- 
bia. He  was  transferred  to  another  South  Ameri- 
can capital  and  afterwards  came  back  to  the  United 
States  by  way  of  Panama.  Former  Senator  J.  C. 
S.  Blackburn  was  then  governor  of  the  Canal  Zone 
or,  more  strictly  speaking,  the  head  of  the  Depart- 
ment of  Civil  Administration.  As  he  and  Minister 
Buchanan  drove  through  the  streets  of  Panama 
and  surveyed  the  changes  that  had  taken  place, 
Mr.  Buchanan  declared  to  Governor  Black- 
burn that  if  an  angel  from  heaven  had  appeared 
to  him  and  said  that  such  a  transformation  in 
the  city  of  Panama  could  be  made  in  so  few  years 
he  scarcely  could  have  believed  it. 

When  he  was  there  the  main  streets  of  the  city 


RELATIONS  WITH  PANAMA  251 

were  nothing  but  unbroken  chains  of  mud  puddles 
in  which,  during  the  wet  season,  carriages  sank 
almost  to  the  axles.  When  he  returned  he  found 
those  same  streets  well  paved  with  vitrified  brick, 
measuring  up  to  the  best  standards  of  American 
street  work.  Where  formerly  peddlers  hawked 
water  from  disease-scattering  springs,  there  were 
hydrants  throughout  the  town  and  wholesome 
water  on  tap  in  almost  every  house.  WThere  there 
had  been  absolutely  no  attempt  to  solve  the  prob- 
lems of  sewage  disposal,  where  the  masses  of 
people  lived  amid  indescribable  filth,  absolutely 
oblivious  to  its  stenches  and  its  dangers,  now  there 
was  a  sewerage  system  fully  up  to  the  best  stand- 
ard of  American  municipal  engineering. 

When  one  considers  that  the  Republic  of  Pan- 
ama is  made  up  largely  of  the  cities  of  Panama  and 
Colon,  with  a  large  area  of  almost  wholly  un- 
developed territory,  it  will  be  seen  that  this  service 
was  rendered  to  practically  all  the  people  of  the 
Republic. 

The  relations  which  have  existed  between  the 
Republic  of  Panama  and  the  United  States  have 
not  always  proved  wholly  satisfactory  to  the 
Panamans.  Like  all  other  tropical  Americans, 
the  Panamans  profess  great  admiration  for  a 
republican  form  of  government,  but  the  party  in 
power  seldom  has  relished  the  idea  of  a  full  and 
free  accounting  of  its  stewardship  at  the  polls. 
When  the  time  came  for  the  first  national  election, 
the  party  in  power  sought  to  insure  its  return  by 
the  use  of  tropical-American  methods;  that  is,  by 
a  wholesale  intimidation  of  the  opposition  sup- 
porters. When  the  registration  books  were  opened 


THE  PANAMA  CANAL 

the  administration  was  unwilling  to  register  the 
supporters  of  the  opposition.  The  government 
forces  always  were  relied  upon  to  back  up  the 
registrars.  This  situation  was  resented  by  the 
opposition  and  the  indications  were  that  the  usual 
civil  war,  the  tropical  American  substitute  for  an 
election,  was  about  to  follow. 

At  this  juncture  Governor  Blackburn  called 
the  Panaman  authorities  together  and  notified 
them  that  the  United  States  did  not  care  a  con- 
tinental which  side  won  the  election,  but  that  it 
was  very  deeply  interested  in  maintaining  condi- 
tions of  peace  and  amity  on  the  Isthmus  —  con- 
ditions which  could  not  prevail  except  there  be  a 
fair  election.  He  reminded  them  of  the  right  of 
the  United  States  to  maintain  order  in  their  two 
principal  cities,  and  of  the  blood  and  treasure  the 
United  States  had  invested  in  Panama,  all  of 
which  would  be  placed  in  jeopardy  by  any  civil 
conflict.  He  therefore  declared  it  the  intention 
of  the  United  States  to  see  that  there  was  a  fair 
election. 

Election     commissioners     were     consequently 
appointed,  and  they  saw  to  it  that  the  voters  were 
fairly  registered,  allowed  to  vote,  and  to  have  their 
votes  counted.     The  result  was  that  for  the  first 
time  in  Central  American  history  there  was  a  fair 
election  and  for  the  first  time  a  real  change  of  admin- 
istration without  a  resort  to  arms.     So  successful 
was  this  plan  that  in  the  election  of  1912  both  sides 
agreed  again  to  call  in  the  United  States  to  umpire 
their  battle  of  the  ballots,  and  once  again  the 
"outs"  won  over  the  "ins." 

The  French  Canal  Company  has  some  very 


RELATIONS  WITH  PANAMA  253 

unpleasant  experiences  with  the  Republic  of 
Colombia  when  it,  as  a  private  corporation,  under- 
took to  build  the  canal.  It  was  at  the  mercy  of 
the  Government  and  the  Government  seldom 
showed  mercy.  For  instance,  a  Colombian  owned 
30  acres  of  swamp  land  which  was  needed  for  the 
construction  of  the  canal.  It  was  worth  $10  an 
acre;  he  demanded  $10,000.  The  canal  company 
took  the  matter  to  the  courts  of  the  Republic  and 
instituted  condemnation  proceedings.  Here  the 
owner  admitted  that  the  land  was  not  intrinsi- 
cally worth  more  than  $10  an  acre,  but  claimed 
that  he  had  as  much  right  to  demand  $300,000  for 
the  tract  as  if  it  were  located  in  the  very  heart  of 
Paris;  that  in  every  case  it  was  what  the  land  could 
be  used  for  that  determined  its  value.  The  court 
shared  his  view  and  nothing  was  left  for  the  canal 
company  to  do  but  to  pay  the  $300,000. 

Shortly  after  the  Americans  took  charge,  the 
Central  and  South  American  Telegraph  Company 
wanted  to  land  the  new  "all  American"  cable  on 
the  Canal  Zone.  They  applied  to  the  United 
States  for  permission  which  was  granted.  The 
Panamans  fought  against  it  under  every  possible 
pretext,  their  desire  being  to  have  their  consent 
regarded  as  essential,  so  that  they  could  get  a 
good  fee  for  the  concession,  but  the  United  States 
notified  the  Republic  of  Panama  that  it  had  no 
interest  whatever  in  requiring  compensation,  and 
so  the  cable  was  laid. 

While  there  has  been  substantial  agreement  be- 
tween the  two  countries,  it  has  been  difficult  to 
prevent  some  conditions  which  are  contrary  to 
American  ideas  of  morality.  For  instance,  while 


254  THE  PANAMA  CANAL 

the  Canal  Commission  was  strongly  opposed  to 
having  a  lottery  on  the  Canal  Zone,  one  is  main-' 
tained  just  across  the  line  in  the  city  of  Panama. 
The  Panama  lottery  and  the  Bishop  of  Panama 
share  the  same  house.  One  has  to  pass  the  lot- 
tery to  see  the  bishop  and,  mayhap,  a  half  dozen 
old  women  ticket  sellers  will  try  to  intercept 
him  before  he  reaches  the  church  dignitary. 

This  lottery  is  a  veritable  gold  mine  to  those  who 
own  it.  Each  ordinary  drawing  brings  in  $10,000 
—  $1  for  each  ticket  issued.  The  grand  prize 
takes  $3,000  of  this,  the  next  9  prizes  calling  for  a 
total  of  $900,  the  next  90  for  a  total  of  $450  and 
the  remaining  prizes  for  $2,070.  Thus,  $6,420  in 
prizes  is  paid  out  of  the  total  of  $10,000  received. 
Out  of  the  remainder,  5  per  cent  goes  to  the  ticket 
sellers  and  5  per  cent  to  the  Panaman  Govern- 
ment. Once  a  month  the  drawing  is  made  for  a 
grand  prize  of  $7,500.  Most  of  the  money  which 
the  lottery  people  make  is  contributed  by  workers 
on  the  canal.  Only  64  per  cent  of  the  money 
received  from  the  sale  of  tickets  is  won  back  by 
the  ticket  buyer  at  each  drawing.  The  net  prof- 
its approximate  a  hundred  thousand  dollars  a 
year. 

On  the  whole,  however,  the  relations  entered 
into  between  the  two  Republics  in  1904  have  been 
such  as  to  leave  no  serious  ground  for  com- 
plaint. They  have  permitted  the  satisfactory 
construction  of  the  canal,  and  they  will  per- 
mit its  satisfactory  operation.  With  the  United 
States  as  the  ultimate  judge  of  every  question 
vital  to  American  interests,  little  is  left  to  be 
desired.  The  fact  is  that  the  canal  has  been  built 


RELATIONS  WITH  PANAMA  255 

with  less  friction  and  fewer  difficulties  with  the 
Republic  of  Panama  than  could  reasonably  have, 
been  hoped  for  at  the  outset.  This  has  been  due 
principally  to  the  fact  that  the  Americans  respon- 
sible for  the  success  of  the  work  have  approached 
the  Panaman  situation  with  tact  where  tact  was 
needed  and  with  firmness  where  firmness  was 
essential. 


CHAPTER  XXI 

THE  CANAL  ZONE  GOVERNMENT 

THE  Canal  Zone  is  a  strip  of  territory  ten 
miles  wide,  its  irregular  lines  following 
the  course  of  the  canal,  which  is  its  axis. 
Over  this  zone  the  United  States,  under  its  treaty 
with  Panama,  exercises  jurisdiction  "as  if  it  were 
sovereign."  The  American  Government  was  un- 
willing to  undertake  the  great  and  expensive  work 
of  constructing  the  canal  without  having  this 
guaranty  to  protect  it  from  possible  harassment 
at  the  hands  of  the  Panaman  authorities. 

One  of  the  first  tasks  that  confronted  the  United 
States  authorities  when  they  entered  upon  the 
work  of  building  the  canal  was  that  of  providing 
a  civil  government  for  this  territory  named  by  law 
the  Canal  Zone.  Postal  facilities  had  to  be 
provided;  a  police  system  had  to  be  established; 
customs  offices  were  required;  fire  protection  was 
necessary;  a  court  system  was  needed;  a  school 
system  was  demanded;  and,  in  short,  a  sort  of 
territorial  government  had  to  be  put  in  operation 
before  the  work  of  building  the  canal  could  go 
forward  satisfactorily. 

This  government  was  established  in  1904  under 
the  direction  of  Major  General  George  W.  Davis, 
the  first  governor  of  the  Canal  Zone.  From  time 
to  time  it  was  extended  and  improved.  More 


THE  CANAL  ZONE  GOVERNMENT  257 

than  half  of  this  was  appropriated  out  of  the 
Treasury  of  the  United  States,  and  the  remainder 
collected  in  the  operations  of  the  government. 
In  addition  to  directing  the  government  of  the 
Zone,  the  head  of  the  department  of  civil  admin- 
istration was  the  titular  representative  of  the 
Canal  Commission  in  all  matters  in  which  the 
commission  and  the  Republic  of  Panama  had 
a  mutual  interest.  However,  in  practice,  the 
Panaman  Government  looked  directly  to  the 
chairman  and  chief  engineer  on  all  important 
matters. 

One  of  the  earliest  and  most  important  subjects 
requiring  their  cooperation  was  that  of  sanitation 
in  the  cities  of  Panama  and  Colon.  The  United 
States  agreed  to  advance  money  for  building  sewer 
and  water  systems,  and  for  street  improvements, 
in  the  two  principal  cities  of  the  Republic,  on 
condition  that  the  Republic  of  Panama  and  the 
two  cities  would  reimburse  the  United  States 
Treasury  through  the  water  rents.  The  street 
improvements  were  to  be  paid  for  in  10  years,  and 
the  sewer  and  water  systems  in  50  years;  in  the 
meantime  the  United  States  was  to  be  allowed  2 
per  cent  interest  on  the  money  advanced.  This 
amortization  of  the  Republic's  debt  for  these  im- 
provements has  been  going  steadily  forward. 

In  laying  out  the  government  of  the  Canal 
Zone  it  was  thought  wise  to  adhere  as  closely  to 
Spanish  laws  and  customs  as  was  expedient  under 
the  new  conditions.  In  view  of  this  consideration 
the  methods  of  taxation  on  the  Canal  Zone  were 
allowed  to  remain  largely  the  same  as  under  the 
old  Spanish  laws  of  Colombia.  Likewise  the 


258  THE  PANAMA  CANAL 

Spanish  system  of  judicial  procedure  was  adhered 
to  during  the  early  years  of  the  construction  period. 
It  was  not,  indeed,  until  1908  that  the  right  of 
trial  by  jury  was  established  in  the  Canal  Zone. 
At  that  time  former  Senator  J.  C.  S.  Blackburn,  of 
Kentucky,  was  at  the  head  of  the  department  of 
civil  administration,  and  he  regarded  it  as  repug- 
nant to  American  ideas  of  justice  to  deny  to  Ameri- 
cans on  the  Isthmus  the  right  to  be  tried  for 
felonious  offenses  by  juries  of  their  peers.  Upon  his 
representations  President  Roosevelt  issued  an 
executive  order  extending  the  right  of  trial  by 
jury  to  the  Canal  Zone,  and  that  order  was  effect- 
ive after  1908. 

With  the  early  opening  of  the  canal  it  became 
advisable  for  Congress  to  determine  the  future 
policy  of  the  United  States  toward  the  Canal  Zone, 
and  to  lay  out  a  system  of  government  there 
which  would  meet  the  needs  of  the  future.  It 
was  determined  that  the  Canal  Zone  should  be 
used  for  the  operation  of  the  canal,  rather  than 
for  a  habitation  for  such  settlers  as  might  choose 
to  go  there.  Hence  the  provision  was  made  that 
the  President  of  the  United  States  should  have 
the  right  to  determine  how  many  settlements 
there  should  be  on  the  Canal  Zone  and  how  many 
people  should  be  permitted  to  live  there. 

It  will  be  the  policy  of  the  United  States  to 
discourage  general  settlement  and  to  maintain 
only  such  towns  as  are  necessary  for  the  operation 
of  the  big  waterway,  granting  only  revocable 
leases  to  any  outsiders  when  it  is  deemed  advisa- 
ble to  allow  them  to  occupy  land  within  the  Zone. 
There  will  be  only  five  settlements  in  the  Zone,  if 


THE  CANAL  ZONE  GOVERNMENT   259 

present  plans  are  carried  out:  One  at  Cristobal, 
one  at  Gatun,  one  at  Pedro  Miguel,  one  at  Corozal, 
and  the  settlement  at  Ancon  and  Balboa  at  the 
Pacific  terminus  of  the  canal.  The  total  number 
of  people  who  will  reside  in  these  settlements  will 
probably  not  exeed  10,000,  a  material  reduction 
from  the  62,000  living  on  the  Zone  in  1912.  Those 
who  are  still  there,  but  who  will  not  be  needed  in 
the  permanent  organization,  will  be  repatriated 
at  the  expense  of  the  United  States  Government. 
In  1912  there  were  approximately  31,000  British 
subjects  on  the  Zone,  practically  all  of  them  negroes 
from  the  British  West  Indian  islands  and  British 
Guiana.  The  great  majority  of  these  will  be 
carried  back  to  their  homes,  as  will  all  of  the  4,300 
Spaniards  who  desire  to  return.  There  were 
nearly  12,000  Americans  on  the  Zone  at  that  time, 
and  perhaps  two-thirds  of  them  will  leave  before 
1915.  There  were  nearly  8,000  Panamans  on 
the  Zone  and  most  of  them  will  go  to  the  cities  of 
Panama  and  Colon,  or  upon  the  Government  lands 
owned  by  the  Panama  Republic  outside  of  the 
Zone. 

The  work  of  clearing  the  Zone  of  its  population 
was  begun  early  in  1913.  A  joint  land  commission 
was  appointed  to  adjudicate  the  claims  of  those 
Panamans  who  were  living  within  the  Zone  on 
lands  that  were  needed  for  the  operation  of  the 
canal.  This  commission  consisted,  under  the 
treaty  existing  between  the  two  countries,  of  two 
Americans  and  two  Panamans.  In  their  work 
they  first  took  up  the  claims  of  the  poorer  classes 
who  had  nothing  but  a  thatched  hut  and  a  small 
patch  of  ground.  The  commission  visited  the 


260  THE  PANAMA  CANAL 

various  parts  of  the  Zone  and  fixed  the  value  of 
such  holdings.  The  people  were  given  free  trans- 
portation over  the  Panama  Railroad,  and  usually 
were  allowed  from  $50  to  $100  for  their  homes. 
They  preferred  to  move  in  colonies,  so  the  Republic 
of  Panama  laid  out  small  towns  away  from  the 
Canal  Zone  for  them.  These  natives,  usually 
almost  full-blooded  Indians,  were  treated  as 
kindly  and  as  considerately  as  conditions  would 
allow.  They  were  willing  to  "fold  their  tents"  like 
the  Arabs,  and  leave  their  homes  behind  as  they 
went  out  to  conquer  new  ones  in  the  Jungles 
where  the  needs  of  a  gigantic  waterway  could 
not  encroach  upon  them. 

The  claims  for  lands  which  have  to  be  taken 
from  individuals  by  the  United  States  will  aggre- 
gate a  half  million  dollars.  As  the  Panaman 
Government  allows  homesteading  on  Government 
lands  at  a  cost  of  about  a  dollar  an  acre,  and  as 
there  are  tens  of  thousands  of  acres  of  better 
land  outside  of  the  Canal  Zone  than  inside,  the 
policy  of  the  United  States  in  freeing  this  strip 
from  native  population  will  not  work  any  great 
injury  to  the  people. 

During  the  construction  period  the  laws  under 
which  the  people  of  the  Zone  lived  were  made  in 
three  different  ways.  Of  course,  Congress  as 
the  legislative  assembly  was  always  supreme. 
But  under  the  laws  passed  by  it,  the  President 
of  the  United  States  was  empowered  to  issue  exec- 
utive orders  covering  points  not  touched  by  con- 
gressional legislation,  and  under  his  instructions 
the  Secretary  of  War  could  promulgate  certain 
orders.  In  addition  to  this,  the  Canal  Commis- 


THE  CANAL  ZONE  GOVERNMENT  261 

sion  had  a  right  to  serve  as  a  sort  of  local  legis- 
lature. During  the  year  1912  sixteen  executive 
orders  pertaining  to  the  Canal  Zone  were  signed 
by  the  President  and  the  Secretary  of  War,  while 
five  ordinances  were  promulgated  by  the  Isth- 
mian Canal  Commission  during  the  same  period. 

The  court  system  under  the  construction- 
period  government  consisted  of  district  courts, 
circuit  courts,  and  a  supreme  court.  There  were 
five  district  judges  and  three  circuit  judges; 
and  the  circuit  judges  sitting  together  constituted 
the  supreme  court,  from  whose  decisions  there 
was  no  appeal.  Under  the  permanent  law  there 
will  be  a  magistrate's  court  in  each  town,  which 
will  have  exclusive,  original  jurisdiction  in  all 
civil  cases  involving  not  more  than  $300,  and  of  all 
criminal  cases  where  the  punishment  does  not 
exceed  a  fine  of  a  hundred  dollars  or  30  days  in 
jail,  or  both.  Its  jurisdiction  will  include  all 
violations  of  police  regulations  and  ordinances,  and 
all  actions  involving  possession  or  title  to  personal 
property  or  the  forcible  entry  and  detainer  of  real 
estate.  These  magistrates  and  the  constables 
under  them  will  serve  for  terms  of  four  years. 
There  will  be  a  district  court  which  will  sit  at  the 
two  terminal  towns  with  the  usual  court  officers. 
The  circuit  court  of  appeals  of  the  fifth  circuit 
of  the  United  States  will  be  the  court  to  which 
appeals  from  the  district  court  will  be  carried. 

The  postal  service  of  the  Canal  Zone  is  prac- 
tically identical  with  that  of  the  United  States. 
The  revenues  collected  from  the  sale  of  stamps  and 
postal  cards  amounted  to  $87,550  in  1912. 
Nearly  a  quarter  of  a  million  money  orders  were 


262  THE  PANAMA  CANAL 

issued  during  that  year,  representing  a  total  of 
approximately  $5,000,000.  A  postal  savings  bank 
system  is  also  maintained,  a  counterpart  of  the 
one  in  the  United  States. 

All  mail  matter  sent  from  the  Canal  Zone  bears 
Panaman  stamps  countermarked  by  the  Canal 
Zone  government.  When  the  United  States  es- 
tablished the  postal  system  at  Panama,  American 
postage  was  used.  The  Panamans  were  very  much 
dissatisfied  with  such  a  procedure,  however, 
since  it  deprived  them  of  a  large  share  of  their 
postal  revenue.  Their  postal  rates  to  the  United 
States  were  those  of  the  universal  postal  union  — 
5  cents  per  ounce  or  fraction  thereof  on  all  first- 
class  mail  matter.  The  rate  from  the  Canal 
Zone  was  only  2  cents.  The  result  was  that 
the  citizens  of  Panama  and  Colon  would  not 
patronize  their  own  post  offices,  but  carried  their 
mail  across  the  line  to  the  post  offices  at  Ancon 
and  Cristobal  where  they  could  mail  their  letters 
at  the  2-cent  rate.  The  Panaman  Government 
protested  against  this,  and  it  was  agreed  by  the 
Americans  that  in  the  future  all  mail  matter  should 
carry  Panaman  postage  stamps.  These  are  fur- 
nished to  the  Canal  Zone  government  at  40  per 
cent  of  their  face  value.  In  this  way  the  share 
of  the  Republic  of  Panama  in  the  postal  receipts 
of  1912  amounted  to  nearly  $33,000. 

President  Roosevelt  selected  one  of  his  "rough 
riders,"  George  R.  Shanton,  to  establish  the  police 
force  on  the  Zone.  This  police  force  was  selected 
generally  from  men  who  had  seen  service  in  the 
United  States  Army  and  had  made  good  records 
there.  In  1912  the  force  consisted  of  117  first- 


THE  CANAL  ZONE  GOVERNMENT  263 

class  white  policemen,  116  colored  policemen,  20 
corporals,  8  sergeants,  7  lieutenants,  and  2  in- 
spectors, besides  a  chief  of  police  and  an  assistant 
chief  of  police.  During  that  year  7,055  arrests 
were  made,  70  per  cent  of  which  resulted  in  con- 
victions. Police  stations  were  maintained  at 
all  settlements  along  the  line.  A  penitentiary 
was  located  at  Culebra  where  approximately  140 
convicts  were  confined.  The  penitentiary  had 
to  be  removed  owing  to  slides  at  Culebra  Cut,  and 
the  men  were  put  to  work  on  the  roads  of  the  Canal 
Zone.  They  were  kept  in  well-guarded  stockades 
at  night. 

When  Judge  Henry  A.  Gudger  was  made  a 
member  of  the  judicial  system  of  the  Canal  Zone 
he  believed  that  it  would  be  the  scene  of  unusual 
lawlessness;  he  thought  it  would  be  a  dumping 
ground  for  lawless  people  from  all  parts  of  the 
world.  He  therefore  believed  in  strong  repres- 
sive measures,  and  his  earlier  sentences  were 
made  heavy  with  that  end  in  view.  He  found 
later,  however,  that  the  opposite  was  true.  Under 
the  system  of  quartering  the  canal  help  there  was 
comparatively  little  mixing  of  the  races.  The 
negroes  lived  to  themselves,  the  Spaniards  to 
themselves,  and  the  Americans  to  themselves; 
therefore,  racial  friction  was  largely  overcome. 
The  lawless  found  the  Canal  Zone  a  desirable 
place  to  shun.  Judge  Gudger  soon  discovered 
that  severe  measures  were  unnecessary,  and  in 
recommending  pardons  frequently  stated  that 
he  had  imposed  sentences  heavier  than  necessary 
to  carry  out  the  repressive  policies  he  had  in 
mind* 


264  THE  PANAMA  CANAL 

A  well-organized,  paid  fire  department  was 
maintained  from  the  beginning  and  it  was  supple- 
mented by  volunteer  companies  in  many  places. 
In  a  number  of  towns  fire  engines  of  the  latest 
automobile  type  were  installed.  Out  of  300 
fire  alarms  in  1912,  nearly  200  were  for  fires  in 
Government  property  valued  at  one  and  three- 
quarters  million  dollars,  while  the  total  loss  was 
only  $5,000. 

The  school  system  of  the  Canal  Zone  was  laid 
out  along  the  same  lines  that  characterized  all 
other  activities  for  the  welfare  of  the  people  who 
were  engaged  in  building  the  canal.  It  was  founded 
by  Charles  E.  Magoon  when  he  was  governor 
of  the  Zone,  and  in  1912  had  75  teachers  and  of- 
ficials, with  an  enrollment  of  2,105,  of  whom  nearly 
1,200  were  white.  The  standard  required  of 
the  teachers  was  maintained  at  a  high  point. 
Of  the  48  white  teachers  employed  in  1912,  13 
held  degrees  from  colleges  and  universities,  19 
held  diplomas  from  standard  normal  schools, 
and  12  others  had  enjoyed  at  least  two  years  of 
normal  teaching.  The  white  children  on  the 
Zone  were  given  free  transportation  to  and  from 
the  schools.  Those  who  had  to  go  on  the  railroad 
to  reach  their  schools  were  given  free  passes. 
Those  who  attended  the  schools  in  their  own  neigh- 
borhood were  gathered  up  in  wagons  and  trans- 
ported to  school. 

The  system  of  roads  for  the  parts  of  the  Canal 
Zone  adjacent  to  the  canal  itself  was  built  mainly 
by  convict  labor  at  comparatively  little  cost. 
They  have  been  useful  to  the  natives  in  getting 
their  few  products  to  market,  and  during  the 


THE  CANAL  ZONE  GOVERNMENT  265 

years  to  come  will  be  available  as  military  roads 
for  use  in  the  defense  of  the  Zone.  These  roads 
are  built  according  to  the  best  American  standards 
and  are  almost  the  only  real  roads  in  the  entire 
Republic.  The  Panaman  Government  has  ex- 
tended one  road  from  the  Zone  line  to  old  Panama, 
and  for  a  few  miles  into  the  interior,  but  aside 
from  this  national  road  activities  have  been  few 
indeed. 

The  American  road  from  Panama  to  the  Zone 
boundary,  leading  toward  old  Panama,  over  the 
savannahs,  is  the  pleasure  highway  of  the  Republic. 
It  is  practically  the  only  road  in  the  Republic 
where  one  drives  for  pleasure,  and  here  every 
automobile  in  Panama  City  is  pressed  into  serv- 
ice during  the  late  afternoon  and  the  evening. 
The  elite  of  the  capital  city  own  summer  homes 
along  this  road.  These  homes  are  by  no  means  as 
elaborate  as  the  summer  homes  along  the  Hudson, 
but  the  fact  that  they  were  seated  amidst  veritable 
gardens  of  flowers  gives  them  an  air  of  beauty 
and  restfulness  attractive  even  to  the  most  blase 
traveler. 

The  water-supply  system  of  the  Canal  Zone 
consists  of  a  number  of  reservoirs  on  the  water- 
sheds of  the  Isthmus  where  no  human  habita- 
tions are  allowed,  and  where  trespassing  is 
forbidden.  The  waters  are  examined  for  bacteria 
and  other  properties  once  each  month,  and  a 
report  thereon  is  made  to  the  proper  officials. 
Twice  each  month  a  physical  examination  of  each 
reservoir,  and  the  land  from  which  it  receives  its 
water,  is  made  by  inspectors  who  report  all  con- 
ditions to  the  sanitary  and  other  authorities. 


266  THE  PANAMA  CANAL 

If  there  is  any  sign  of  contamination,  steps  to 
overcome  the  trouble  are  taken  immediately. 

Where  the  reservoirs  fill  up  to  the  spillway  the 
waste  water  is  not  allowed  to  go  over  the  top, 
but  is  drawn  out  from  the  bottom  in  order  that 
the  under  layers  of  water  may  be  the  ones  wasted. 
Water  drawn  out  for  domestic  purposes  is  taken 
from  the  top  wherever  possible.  The  water  has 
a  somewhat  unpleasant  taste  to  people  newly 
arrived  upon  the  Isthmus,  and  in  some  cases 
serves  to  disturb  the  digestive  tract,  but  to  the 
people  who  become  accustomed  to  it  the  unpleas- 
ant flavor,  due  to  the  presence  of  decayed  vegeta- 
tion, is  forgotten,  and  the  workers  on  the  Canal  Zone 
frequently  declare  they  miss  the  Panama  water 
when  they  go  back  to  the  States. 

The  permanent  Government  of  the  Canal  Zone 
will  be,  in  the  main,  merely  a  miniature  of  the 
government  during  the  construction  period.  The 
law  providing  for  the  operation  of  the  canal 
makes  this  Government  entirely  subsidiary  to  the 
main  purpose  for  which  the  canal  was  built. 
It  provides  that  when  war  is  in  prospect  the  Presi- 
dent may  appoint  a  military  officer  to  take  charge 
of  the  Canal  Zone,  and  to  conduct  its  affairs  as 
they  might  be  conducted  were  the  Zone  nothing 
more  than  a  military  reservation.  The  Government 
will  have  its  headquarters  at  the  Pacific  end  of 
the  canal  where  Balboa,  the  principal  permanent 
town  on  the  Isthmus,  will  be  located.  This  little 
American  city  will  be  Government-built  and 
Government-owned,  and  it  will  be  the  smallest 
of  all  the  world's  capitals. 
'•  Under  the  new  Government  all  old  laws,  not 


THE  CANAL  ZONE  GOVERNMENT  267 

specifically  repealed,  or  contrary  to  the  new  ones, 
will  be  continued  in  force.  All  executive  orders 
issued  by  the  President,  and  all  orders  and  or- 
dinances promulgated  by  the  Canal  Commission, 
during  the  construction  period,  not  inconsistent 
with  the  act  creating  a  permanent  form  of  govern- 
ment, are  made  laws  of  the  Canal  Zone  to  con- 
tinue as  such  until  specifically  repealed  by  act 
of  Congress, 


CHAPTER  XXII 

CONGRESS  AND  THE  CANAL 

WHILE  the  Congress  of  the  United  States 
ever  has  been  charged  with  a  lack  of  ap- 
preciation of  the  needs  of  the  executive 
branch  of  the  Government,  spending  money  fool- 
ishly here  and  being  niggardly  with  its  appropri- 
ations there,  the  history  of  the  legislation  under 
which  the  Panama  Canal  was  undertaken  and 
completed  shows  that  American  lawmakers  backed 
up  the  canal  diggers  in  every  necessary  way. 

One  may  read  in  all  the  hearings  that  were 
conducted,  both  on  the  Isthmus  and  in  Washing- 
ton, a  desire  on  the  part  of  the  congressional 
committees  having  to  do  with  the  canal  matters, 
to  promote  the  work,  and  to  enable  those  directly 
concerned  in  its  execution  to  carry  out  their  plans 
without  hindrance. 

It  is  probable  that  no  project  ever  carried  to 
completion  under  the  aegis  of  the  United  States 
Government  was  studied  more  carefully  by  the 
legislators  than  the  Panama  Canal.  There  was 
a  standing  invitation  from  the  Isthmian  Canal 
Commission  to  members  of  the  Senate  and  House 
of  Representatives  to  visit  the  Isthmus,  collectively 
or  individually,  for  the  purpose  of  acquainting 
themselves  with  the  character  of  the  work  and  its 
needs.  This  invitation  was  accepted  by  a  large 


CONGRESS  AND  THE  CANAL          269 

percentage  of  the  members  of  the  House  and  Senate 
who  served  during  the  construction  period.  When 
a  member  of  either  branch  of  Congress  visited 
the  Isthmus  and  saw  there  the  character  of  the 
work  being  done,  and  the  spirit  of  the  men  behind 
it,  he  never  failed  to  return  an  enthusiastic  sup- 
porter of  the  work,  ready  by  vote  and  voice  to 
contribute  his  share  to  the  legislation  needed. 

When  the  final  Isthmian  Canal  Commission 
came  into  power  a  policy  of  absolute  candor  with 
Congress  was  adopted.  When  the  annual  esti- 
mates for  appropriations  were  submitted,  they 
came  to  Congress  with  the  understanding  that  they 
represented  exactly  what  was  needed,  no  more  and 
no  less.  Instead  of  recommending  from  10  to 
25  per  cent  more  than  they  hoped  to  get,  upon  the 
assumption  that  Congress  would  scale  down  the 
appropriations  —  a  policy  long  followed  in  many 
of  the  bureaus  of  the  Government  —  the  canal 
officials  asked  Congress  to  understand  from  the 
beginning  that  the  figures  they  submitted  had 
been  pared  down  to  the  bone.  The  result  was  a 
happy  one.  Congress  learned  to  depend  upon 
the  figures  and  to  make  its  appropriations  ac- 
cordingly; consequently,  the  work  was  never 
handicapped  by  appropriations  deficient  in  one 
branch  and  overabundant  in  another. 

Congress  for  several  years  made  its  appropria- 
tions for  building  the  canal  under  the  assumption 
that  it  was  to  cost  about  $145,000,000,  exclusive 
of  government,  sanitation,  purchase  price,  and 
payments  to  the  Republic  of  Panama.  It  was 
not  until  1908  that  a  straightforward,  definite 
effort  was  made  to  fix  the  ultimate  cost.  Ex- 


270  THE  PANAMA  CANAL 

perience  showed  clearly  that  all  hands  had  hope- 
lessly underestimated  both  the  total  amount  of 
work  to  be  done,  and  the  unit  cost  of  doing  it. 

After  a  year's  experience  of  carrying  forward 
the  work  at  full  swing,  the  commission  decided 
to  face  the  situation  frankly  and  attempt  to 
ascertain  exactly  what  might  be  expected.  This 
investigation  disclosed  the  fact  that  the  estimates 
of  the  amount  of  work  to  be  done  were  a  little  over 
50  per  cent  short.  Under  the  experience  of  one 
year's  work  it  was  calculated  that  the  total  cost 
of  the  canal  would  be  $375,000,000,  including 
sanitation,  government,  and  payments  to  the 
New  Panama  Canal  Company  and  the  Republic 
of  Panama,  instead  of  $210,000,000,  as  these  items 
would  have  aggregated  under  the  estimates  made 
in  1906.  This  was  about  one  and  a  half  times  as 
much  as  the  estimated  cost  of  a  sea-level  canal. 
But,  although  Congress  had  fixed  the  limit  upon 
the  basis  of  an  aggregate  cost  of  $210,000,000, 
it  cheerfully  faced  the  restatement  of  the  antici- 
pated cost,  and  finally  set  the  limit  at  $375,000,- 
000. 

From  that  day  forward  the  great  effort  at 
Panama  was  to  live  within  this  limit,  in  spite  of 
the  extra  work  required.  While  Congress  might 
have  been  willing  to  increase  this  limit,  in  view  of 
the  fact  that  an  additional  97,000,000  cubic  yards 
of  material  had  to  be  removed,  it  was  not  asked 
to  do  so.  The  engineers  desired  above  everything 
else  to  stay  within  their  own  estimates,  and  they 
did  the  extra  work  with  money  saved  by  increasing 
the  efficiency  of  the  force. 

The  first  law  providing  for  the  government  of  the 


CONGRESS  AND  THE  CANAL          271 

Canal  Zone  was  enacted  in  1904.  It  gave  to  the 
President  and  those  appointed  by  him  the  right 
to  govern  the  Zone  and  imposed  the  duty  "of  main- 
taining and  protecting  its  inhabitants  in  the  free 
enjoyment  of  their  liberty,  property,  and  religion." 

In  1907  an  effort  was  made  to  reduce  wages  on 
the  canal.  The  sundry  civil  bill  of  that  year 
carried  a  provision  that  wages  on  the  Isthmus 
for  skilled  and  unskilled  labor  should  not  exceed 
more  than  25  per  cent  the  average  wage  paid 
in  the  United  States  for  similar  labor.  This 
proposition  was  urged  by  Representative  James 
A.  Tawney,  of  Minnesota,  then  chairman  of  the 
Appropriations  Committee  of  the  House.  When 
it  came  to  a  vote  the  wages  fixed  under  Chief 
Engineers  Wallace  and  Stevens  were  upheld 
by  a  vote  of  101  to  10.  Congress  took  the  ground 
that  the  canal  could  be  built  only  by  the  most 
liberal  treatment  of  the  people  who  were  building  it. 

At  another  time  a  provision  was  inserted  in  the 
appropriation  law  establishing  the  8-hour  day 
law  for  American  workers  on  the  canal.  A  fight 
was  made  by  the  American  Federation  of  Labor 
and  other  organizations  to  make  it  apply  to 
the  common  laborer  as  well  as  to  the  Americans, 
but  this  was  unsuccessful.  The  8-hour  pro- 
vision did  not  work  well,  since  the  foremen  and 
superintendents  were  permitted  to  stop  work  after 
8  hours,  while  the  laborers  under  them  had  to 
work  an  hour  longer.  This  was  later  rectified 
by  providing  that  the  8-hour  law  should  not 
affect  foremen  and  superintendents  in  charge  of 
alien  labor;  and  thus  was  overcome  the  -difficulty 
of  having  an  army  of  common  laborers  at  work 


272  THE  PANAMA  CANAL 

an  hour  or  so  each  day  without  superintendence 
or  direction. 

In  1906  it  was  provided  by  a  joint  resolution 
of  the  Senate  and  House  that  the  purchase  of 
material  and  equipment  for  use  in  the  construction 
of  the  canal  should  be  restricted  to  articles  of 
American  production  and  manufacture,  except  in 
cases  where  the  President  should  deem  prices 
extortionate  or  unreasonable.  This  provision  un- 
doubtedly increased  by  many  millions  of  dollars 
the  cost  of  the  machinery  with  which  the  canal 
work  was  executed.  While  some  dredges  and 
other  equipment  were  purchased  in  Europe,  foreign 
purchases  were  the  exception  rather  than  the  rule. 
When  bids  were  submitted  there  were  times  when 
European  prices  of  dredges  were  placed  at  less 
than  $700,000,  while  American  prices  for  the  same 
dredges  would  amount  to  more  than  $1,000,000. 
When  there  were  such  marked  difference  in  bids  the 
awards  were  made  to  the  European  manufacturers. 

Although  the  construction  of  the  canal  was 
authorized  by  the  Spooner  Act  in  1902,  it  was  not 
until  1906  that  Congress  expressed  its  views  in 
legislation  on  the  question  of  the  type  of  canal 
that  should  be  built.  It  was  then  that  it  declared 
the  canal  should  be  of  the  general  lock  type  pro- 
posed by  the  minority  of  the  board  of  consulting 
engineers,  which  was  a  complete  approval  of  the 
plans  urged  by  President  Roosevelt.  In  order 
to  make  certain  this  decision  as  to  the  type  of 
canal,  a  provision  was  incorporated  in  the  appro- 
priation bill  of  that  year,  setting  forth  that  no  part 
of  the  sUms  therein  appropriated  should  be  used 
for  the  construction  of  a  sea-level  canal. 


CONGRESS  AND  THE  CANAL          273 

Congress  was  always  willing  to  aid  the  engineers 
in  meeting  unforeseen  contingencies  by  giving 
them  unusual  liberties  in  the  application  of  moneys 
appropriated.  It  was  provided  that  as  much  as 
10  per  cent  of  any  appropriation  might  be  used 
for  any  of  the  other  purposes  for  which  money  was 
appropriated,  thus  allowing  the  necessary  leeway 
to  insure  a  systematic  progress  of  the  work  through- 
out all  its  features.  This  provision  many  times 
came  to  the  rescue  of  the  chief  engineer,  when  he 
found  that  more  money  was  needed  at  one  point 
and  less  at  "another  than  had  been  estimated  16 
or  18  months  before. 

While  President  Roosevelt  was  in  the  White 
House  Congress  gave  him  abundant  authority 
over  all  phases  of  the  task  at  Panama.  He  was 
empowered  to  do  almost  anything  he  thought 
expedient  for  hastening  the  work.  For  instance, 
in  1907  when  he  considered  building  the  canal 
by  contract,  Congress  provided  that  nothing  in  the 
Spooner  Act  should  prevent  him  from  entering 
into  such  contract  or  contracts  as  he  might  deem 
expedient  for  the  construction  of  the  canal.  This 
practically  gave  him  full  authority  over  the  limit 
of  cost  and  the  methods  of  building.  He  was 
thus  the  sole  judge  of  the  character  of  the  contracts 
that  he  might  make.  No  President  in  the  history 
of  the  country  ever  was  vested  with  fuller  juris- 
diction and  control  over  a  great  matter  than  was 
President  Roosevelt  in  this  case.  That  he  did  not 
enter  into  such  contract  was  due  mainly  to  the 
reports  made  to  him  by  Col.  George  W.  Goethals, 
who  had  just  been  appointed  chief  engineer. 

In  1908  the  Secretary  of  War  was  authorized 


*THE  PANAMA  CANAL 

to  purchase  for  the  Panama  Railroad  Company 
two  steamships  of  American  registry  of  not  less 
than  9,000  gross  tons  each,  the  cost  of  which 
should  not  exceed  $1,550,000,  for  the  transportation 
of  supplies,  equipment,  and  material,  and  of 
officers  and  employees  of  the  Canal  Commission. 
These  ships,  when  no  longer  required  for  that 
service  were  to  be  transferred  to  the  Secretary 
of  the  Navy  for  use  as  colliers  or  other  auxiliary 
naval  vessels.  These  ships  carried  the  bulk  of 
the  cement  used  in  building  of  the  great  locks,  and 
more  than  paid  for  themselves  in  tne  saving  of 
transportation  charges  which  would  have  been 
levied  by  private  carriers.  In  the  appropriation 
act  of  1909  Congress  decided  that  the  carrying 
of  marine  or  fire  insurance  was  bad  policy  for  the 
Government,  and  provided  that  no  such  insurance 
should  be  carried  by  the  Panama  Railroad  Com- 
pany, but  that  it  should  be  reimbursed  for  any 
loss  it  might  sustain  from  the  appropriations 
made  by  Congress  for  the  building  of  the  canal. 
There  were  a  number  of  committees  in  Congress 
which  dealt  with  canal  legislation.  Principal 
among  these  were  the  Committees  on  Appropria- 
tions of  the  two  Houses,  the  Committee  on 
Interoceanic  Canals  of  the  Senate,  and  the  Com- 
mittee on  Interstate  and  Foreign  Commerce  of 
the  House.  The  Appropriations  Committees  dealt 
with  the  question  of  appropriations.  The  House 
Appropriations  Committee  usually  made  a  trip 
to  the  Isthmus  before  each  session  of  Congress. 
There  it  would  hold  hearings,  questioning  closely 
every  person  connected  with  the  work  who  had 
made  estimates  for  its  benefit,  its  members  seeing 


CONGRESS  AND  THE  CANAL          275 

with  their  own  eyes  the  projects  for  which  each 
individual  appropriation  was  asked.  The  prac- 
tice was,  during  these  visits,  to  go  over  a  part  of 
the  work  and  then  to  hold  sessions  of  the  committee 
for  the  purpose  of  asking  questions  about  that 
phase  of  the  undertaking.  The  testimony  was 
taken  down  by  an  official  stenographer  and  printed 
for  the  use  of  every  Member  of  Congress.  A  few 
months  later  the  chairman  and  chief  engineer 
would  make  a  trip  to  Washington  and  furnish  the 
committee  with  such  supplementary  information 
as  the  intervening  time  might  have  disclosed. 

The  Senate  Committee  did  not  visit  the  Isthmus 
as  frequently,  as  it  usually  found  that  the  hearings 
held  by  the  House  Committee  afforded  it  sufficient 
information  on  which  to  predicate  its  action. 
All  matters  having  to  do  with  organization 
traffic,  or  general  laws  for  the  Canal  Zone,  were 
handled  by  the  Committee  on  Interoceanic  Canals 
of  the  Senate  and  the  Committee  on  Interstate 
and  Foreign  Commerce  of  the  House.  It  was 
the  latter  committee,  under  the  chairmanship 
of  Representative  William  C.  Adamson,  of  Georgia, 
which  framed  the  permanent  Canal  Law,  Under 
which  the  Isthmian  waterway  will  be  governed 
and  operated.  The  big  fight  in  Congress  over 
the  type  of  canal  was  waged  before  the  Senate 
Committee  on  Interoceanic  Canals.  The  records 
of  this  committee,  together  with  the  additional 
records  in  the  hands  of  Congress,  constitute  one 
of  the  most  extensive  accounts  of  a  great  work 
anywhere  to  be  found.  The  official  literature  of 
the  Panama  Canal  is  almost  as  voluminous  as  the 
canal  is  big. 


276  THE  PANAMA  CANAL 

Although  Congress  usually  left  the  details  of 
canal  construction  to  be  worked  out  by  the  Canal 
Commission  and  the  President,  from  start  to 
finish  it  showed 'a  determination  so  to  deal  with 
the  big  project  that  it  could  look  back  over  the 
work  with  the  feeling  that  it  had  contributed 
its  share  to  the  triumph  of  the  undertaking. 


CHAPTER  XXIH 

SEA-LEVEL  CANAL  IMPOSSIBLE 

NO  ONE  can  dispute  the  wisdom  of  the 
United  States  in  deciding  to  build  a  lock 
canal.  To  have  undertaken  a  sea-level 
canal  would  have  involved  this  Government  in 
difficulties  so  great  that  even  with  all  the  wealth 
and  determination  of  America,  failure  would  have 
ensued.  It  is,  perhaps,  putting  it  too  strongly  to 
say  that  a  sea-level  canal  is  a  physical  impossibility, 
but  it  is  not  too  much  to  say  that  such  a  canal 
would  take  so  much  money  and  so  much  time  to 
build  that  the  resources  and  patience  of  the  Ameri- 
can people  would  be  exhausted  long  before  it  could 
be  made  navigable. 

The  advocates  of  a  sea-level  canal  declared  that 
a  channel  could  be  dug  through  Culebra  Mountain 
with  the  excavation  of  110,000,000  cubic  yards. 
As  a  matter  of  fact,  Culebra  Cut,  with  its  bottom 
85  feet  above  sea  level,  required  the  excavation  of 
almost  that  same  amount. 

Engineers  who  advocated  a  sea-level  canal  de- 
clared that  the  material  in  Culebra  Mountain  was 
stable,  and  that  only  moderate  slopes  would  be 
necessary.  As  a  matter  of  fact,  the  material  in  the 
mountain  proved  highly  unstable,  and,  except  for 
a  few  short  sections,  slides  and  breaks  were  en- 
countered all  during  the  construction  period.  The 

277 


278  THE  PANAMA  CANAL 

result  was  that  practically  two  Culebra  Cuts  were 
dug.  The  engineers,  in  beginning  the  present 
canal,  calculated  that  53,000,000  cubic  yards 
would  be  excavated  in  Culebra;  the  amount  actu- 
ally removed  was  105,000,000  cubic  yards.  Upon 
this  basis  a  sea-level  Culebra  Cut  might  have  re- 
quired the  excavation  of  230,000,000  cubic  yards. 

Calculating  an  average  monthly  excavation  of  a 
million  cubic  yards,  the  task  would  have  required 
17  years  to  complete.  In  other  words,  if  a  sea- 
level  canal  had  been  undertaken  and  had  been 
physically  possible,  the  celebration  of  the  opening 
of  the  waterway  would  have  been  set  for  1925 
instead  of  1915. 

Among  all  of  the  members  of  the  majority  of  the 
board  of  consulting  engineers  who  favored  a  sea- 
level  canal,  only  one,  E.  Quellenec,  Consulting 
Engineer  of  the  Suez  Canal,  showed  any  apprecia- 
tion of  the  difficulties  which  were  to  be  expected  in 
Culebra  Cut.  He  announced,  in  voting  in  favor  of 
a  sea-level  canal,  that  he  could  not  do  so  without 
first  reminding  the  United  States  Government  of 
the  great  difficulties  that  would  lie  before  it  in 
Culebra  Cut.  Henry  Hunter,  Engineer  of  the  Man- 
chester Ship  Canal,  declared  that  Culebra  Cut  pre- 
sented no  serious  problems  at  all ;  that  a  sea-level  cut 
could  be  dug  more  quickly  than  the  locks  of  the 
other  type  of  canal  could  be  built.  He  further 
declared  that  it  was  as  clearly  demonstrable  as  any 
engineering  problem  could  be,  that  it  would  be 
possible  to  use  100  steam  shovels  in  Culebra  Cut. 
No  one  has  accused  the  engineers  on  the  canal  of 
lack  of  ability  in  maneuvering  shovels,  yet  at  no 
time  were  they  able  to  use  more  than  46. 


SEA-LEVEL  CANAL  IMPOSSIBLE       279 

If  President  Roosevelt  had  followed  the  recom- 
mendation of  the  majority  of  the  board  of  consult- 
ing engineers  in  favor  of  a  sea-level  canal,  it  seems 
probable  that  the  United  States  would  have  fol- 
lowed the  French  in  retiring  defeated  from  the 
Isthmus,  or  else  would  have  reconsidered  its  pur- 
pose to  build  a  sea-level  canal  and  have  undertaken 
a  lock  canal,  as  the  French  had  done. 

But,  even  if  it  had  been  possible  to  build  a  sea- 
level  canal  at  Panama,  it  appears  that  such  a  canal 
would  not  have  been  as  satisfactory  as  the  present 
one.  While  the  canal  the  United  States  possesses 
at  Panama  to-day  is  a  great  waterway  300  feet 
wide  at  its  narrowest  part,  in  which  ships  can  pass 
at  any  point,  the  sea-level  canal  projected  would 
have  been  a  narrow  channel  winding  in  and  out 
among  the  hills,  too  narrow  for  half  its  length  for 
the  largest  ships  to  pass.  Currents,  caused  by  the 
Chagres  River,  and  by  the  flow  of  other  streams 
into  the  canal,  would  have  made  navigation  some- 
what dangerous. 

The  principal  ground  upon  which  the  majority 
members  of  the  board  of  consulting  engineers  voted 
in  favor  of  a  sea-level  canal  was  that  it  was  less 
vulnerable.  This  contention,  in  the  light  of  what 
has  happened  at  Panama,  seems  to  carry  no  great 
weight.  Such  a  canal  would  have  required  a 
masonry  dam  180  feet  high  across  the  Chagres  at 
Gamboa,  to  regulate  the  flow  of  that  river  into  the 
canal.  This  dam,  very  narrow  and  very  high, 
would  have  been  a  much  fairer  mark  than  the  great 
Gatun  Dam  for  the  wielder  of  high  explosives. 
Furthermore,  while  earth  dams,  like  that  at  Gatun, 
have  weathered  earthquake  shocks  of  great  sever- 


280  THE  PANAMA  CANAL 

ity,  masonry  dams,  like  that  proposed  for  Gamboa, 
have  been  tumbled  to  the  earth  by  shocks  of  much 
less  power.  The  regulating  works  at  Gatun  will 
take  care  of  a  volume  of  water  approximately  twice 
as  great  as  the  Chagres  has  ever  brought  down. 
On  the  other  hand,  the  proposed  dam  at  Gamboa 
would  have  cared  for  only  one-third  as  great  a 
discharge  as  the  highest  known  flow  of  the  Chagres. 

It  was  calculated  that  the  lake  made  by  the  dam 
at  Gamboa  would  always  be  held  at  low  stage  be- 
tween floods,  but  if  two  floods  came  in  quick  suc- 
cession this  might  have  been  impossible.  Such  a 
situation  would  have  made  the  Chagres  River 
always  a  menace  to  the  canal,  instead  of  its  most 
essential  and  beneficent  feature. 

Those  who  objected  to  the  lock  type,  on  the 
ground  that  the  locks  could  be  destroyed,  seemed 
to  forget  that  even  the  sea-level  project  demanded 
a  set  of  locks  to  regulate  the  tides  of  the  Pacific. 
While,  contrary  to  the  usual  idea,  there  is  no 
difference  in  the  mean  level  of  the  Atlantic  and  the 
Pacific  Oceans,  the  difference  in  the  tides  at  Pan- 
ama is  about  18  feet.  This  is  due  to  the  shape  of 
the  Bay  of  Panama.  As  the  tide  sweeps  over  the 
Pacific  and  into  that  bay,  it  meets  a  funnel-shaped 
shore  line,  which  gradually  contracts  as  the  tide 
travels  landward.  The  result  is  that  the  tide  rises 
higher  and  higher  until  it  reaches  a  maximum  of  10 
feet  above  average  sea  level.  When  it  flows  out  it 
reaches  a  point  10  feet  below  average  sea  level, 
thus  giving  a  tidal  fluctuation  of  20  feet.  On  the 
Atlantic  side  the  tidal  fluctuation  is  only  2  feet. 

Under  these  conditions  the  canal  could  not  be 
operated  during  many  hours  of  the  24  without  the 


SEA-LEVEL  CANAL  IMPOSSIBLE       281 

tidal  locks,  if  at  all,  and  it  would  be  almost  as  great 
a  hindrance  to  have  the  tidal  locks  destroyed  as  to 
have  the  present  locks  injured.  Another  perpetual 
menace  in  a  canal  with  a  bottom  width  of  only  150 
feet  for  half  of  its  distance,  would  be  the  danger  of 
a  ship  sinking  and  blocking  the  channel.  When 
the  Cheatham  sank  in  the  Suez  Canal  it  wholly 
blocked  the  waterway  for  nine  days,  and  partially 
blocked  it  for  a  month. 

According  to  the  Isthmian  Canal  Commission, 
the  present  canal  affords  greater  safety  for  ships 
and  less  danger  of  interruption  to  traffic  by  reason 
of  its  wider  and  deeper  channels;  it  provides  for 
quicker  passage  across  the  Isthmus  for  large  ships 
and  for  heavy  traffic;  it  is  in  much  less  danger  of 
being  damaged,  and  of  delays  to  ships  because  of 
the  flood  waters  of  the  Chagres;  it  can  be  enlarged 
more  easily  and  much  more  cheaply  than  could  a 
sea-level  canal.  The  lock  canal  has  a  minimum 
depth  of  41  feet,  and  less  than  5  miles  of  it  has  a 
width  as  narrow  as  300  feet.  It  can  take  care  of 
80,000,000  tons  of  shipping  a  year,  and,  by  the 
expenditure  of  less  than  $25,000,000  additional, 
can  increase  this  capacity  by  at  least  a  third.  It 
can  pass  at  least  48  ships  a  day,  doing  all  that  a  sea- 
level  canal  could  do,  and  many  things  that  a  sea- 
level  canal  could  not  do. 

No  one  denies  that  if  it  were  possible  to  have  a 
great  Isthmian  waterway  at  sea  level  as  wide  as  the 
present  lock  canal,  it  would  be  the  ideal  inter- 
oceanic  waterway.  But,  as  such  a  proposition  is 
out  of  the  question,  the  American  people  have  at 
least  one  thing  for  which  to  thank  Theodore 
Roosevelt  —  that  at  a  critical  time  m  the  history 


THE  PANAMA  CANAL 

of  the  canal  project  he  allowed  himself  to  be  con- 
verted from  the  advocacy  of  a  sea-level  canal  to 
the  championship  of  a  lock-level  canal,  in  the  face 
of  a  majority  report  of  one  of  the  strongest  boards 
of  engineers  ever  assembled,  and  prevented  a  situ- 
ation at  Panama  that  would  have  been  humiliating 
to  America,  and  which  probably  would  have  ended 
for  all  time  the  efforts  of  centuries  to  let  ships 
through  the  American  Isthmus. 


CHAPTER  XXIV 

FORTIFICATIONS 

WHEN  Congress  decided  that  the  Panama 
Canal  should  be  regarded  as  a  part  of 
the  military  defenses  of  the  Nation,  it  be- 
came necessary  to  fortify  it  in  such  a  way  as  to 
make  it  practically  impregnable  to  naval  attack. 
It  was,  therefore,  decided  that  there  should  be 
ample  coast  defenses  at  the  two  ends  of  the  canal 
and  that  these  defenses  should  be  protected  from 
land  attack  by  the  quartering  of  a  sufficient  num- 
ber of  mobile  troops  to  hold  in  check  any  landing 
parties  that  might  attack  the  works  by  an  overland 
route. 

In  carrying  out  this  plan  Congress  met  every 
demand  of  the  military  experts.  When  the  plans 
for  the  fortifications  were  pending  before  the 
Appropriations  Committee  of  the  House  every 
military  authority,  from  Gen.  Leonard  Wood  and 
Col.  George  W.  Goethals  down,  who  appeared 
before  the  committee  was  asked  if  he  considered 
the  defenses  recommended  as  sufficient  for  the 
purposes  intended,  and  each  replied  in  the  affirma- 
tive. 

These  defenses  consist  of  large  forts  at  each  end 
of  the  canal,  with  field  works  for  some  6,000  mobile 
troops.  The  defenses  on  the  Pacific  side  will  be 
somewhat  stronger  than  those  on  the  Atlantic  side, 


284  THE  PANAMA  CANAL 

probably  for  the  reason  that  better  naval  protec- 
tion ordinarily  could  be  afforded  to  the  Atlantic 
than  to  the  Pacific  entrance,  on  account  of  the 
proximity  of  the  Atlantic  waters  of  the  canal  to 
American  shores. 

At  the  forts  on  the  Atlantic  side  four  12-inch 
guns,  sixteen  12-inch  mortars,  six  6-inch  guns  and 
four  4%o-inch  howitzers  will  be  mounted.  The 
guns  at  this  end  of  the  canal  will  be  distributed 
between  Toro  Point  on  the  west  side  of  the  en- 
trance channel  and  Margarita  Island  on  the  east 
side.  There  will  be  two  big  14-inch  disappearing 
guns  at  each  of  these  points.  They  will  be  so 
placed  as  to  sweep  the  horizon  in  the  seaward 
direction,  and  at  the  same  time  will  be  able  to 
concentrate  their  fire  on  the  enemy  as  he  steams  in 
toward  the  channel  entrance  between  the  great 
breakwaters  which  cut  off  Limon  Bay  from  the 
ocean. 

At  the  Pacific  end  all  of  the  defenses  will  be  on 
the  east  side  of  the  channel.  They  will  consist  of 
one  16-inch  gun,  six  14-inch  guns,  six  6-inch  guns 
and  eight  4%o-inch  howitzers.  There  are  three 
small  islands  on  the  east  side  of  the  Pacific  entrance 
channel  known  as  Naos,  Perico,  and  Flamenco. 
They  rise  precipitously  out  of  the  water  and  offer 
ideal  sites  for  heavy  defense.  A  huge  dump  or 
breakwater  has  been  built  from  the  mainland  at 
Balboa  out  to  Naos  Island  and  this,  in  turn,  has 
been  connected  with  Perico  and  Flamenco  by 
large  stone  causeways.  The  great  dump  has  made 
several  hundred  acres  of  available  land  for  quarter- 
ing the  eight  companies  of  coast-defense  troops 
which  will  be  stationed  at  the  Pacific  end  of  the 


FORTIFICATIONS  285 

canal.  These  islands  are  3  miles  from  the  main- 
land and  their  guns  will  completely  bar  the  way  to 
any  hostile  ships  which  might  seek  to  enter  the 
canal. 

On  the  other  side  of  the  channel,  at  a  distance  of 
about  12  miles,  lies  the  island  of  Taboga  where  the 
Canal  Commission  maintains  the  sanitarium  for  its 
employees.  It  had  been  suggested  by  some  that 
fortifications  should  be  planted  there,  but  it  was 
declared  by  the  military  authorities  that  the  guns 
of  Naos,  Perico,  and  Flamenco  would  completely 
command  this  island  and  prevent  a  hostile  nation 
from  using  it  as  a  base  of  operations. 

The  range  of  the  guns  extends  more  than  a 
mile  beyond  Taboga  Island.  The  big  16-inch  gun 
which  will  be  mounted  on  Perico  Island  is  the 
largest  ever  built.  It  was  made  at  the  Watervliet 
Arsenal.  It  carries  a  projectile  weighing  more 
than  a  ton  for  a  distance  of  21  miles.  At  17  miles 
it  can  toss  its  death-dealing  2,400-pound  shell  at  an 
enemy  as  accurately  as  a  base-ball  player  throws  a 
ball  to  a  team-mate  17  yards  away.  Its  projectiles 
are  filled  with  powerful  explosives,  a  single  one  of 
which  in  the  vitals  of  any  battleship  would  be 
enough  to  place  it  out  of  commission.  The  big 
guns  and  the  mortars  are  intended  primarily  for 
defending  the  canal  from  attack  by  water.  The 
smaller  guns  and  howitzers  would  come  into  play 
when  an  enemy  approached  within  a  mile  and 
would  be  used  to  repel  his  efforts  to  effect  a  landing. 
Nearly  all  of  these  howitzers  may  be  moved  from 
place  to  place  to  meet  the  needs  of  the  field  troops 
in  case  of  land  attack.  Eight  of  them  will  be 
permanently  stationed  at  Gatun  Locks.  There 


286  THE  PANAMA  CANAL 

will  be  other  field  works  at  Gatun,  Miraflores,  and 
Pedro  Miguel  ready  for  occupancy  at  a  moment's 
notice  by  the  field  troops  stationed  on  the  Isthmus. 
These  howitzers  are  so  located  that  12  of  them  may 
be  concentrated  at  any  given  point  in  case  of 
danger. 

The  big  guns  of  the  permanent  forts  are  all 
mounted  on  disappearing  carriages  so  that  they  are 
exposed  to  fire  only  at  the  moment  of  discharge. 
The  12-inch  mortars  will  not  only  play  their  part 
in  defending  the  canal  from  water  attack,  but 
will  be  able  to  sweep  the  country  on  the  Atlantic 
side  as  far  inland  as  the  Gatun  Locks  and  on  the 
Pacific  side  as  far  inland  as  the  locks  at  Miraflores. 
They  have  a  range  of  nearly  4  miles,  and  when 
loaded  with  shrapnel  will  prove  a  most  effective 
weapon  against  field  troops  operating  anywhere 
within  the  vicinity  of  the  locks. 

The  land  lying  contiguous  to  the  sea-level  ends 
of  the  canal  will  be  platted  off  into  squares  exactly 
as  a  city  is  laid  out.  Should  hostile  troops  come 
upon  this  territory  the  men  in  the  fire-control 
station  would  simply  ascertain  the  number  of  the 
block  or  blocks  on  which  they  were  operating,  and 
the  mortars  would  be  so  oriented  as  to  throw  their 
big  projectiles  thousands  of  yards  into  the  air  to 
fall  directly  on  those  blocks.  They  would,  there- 
fore, be  practically  as  useful  in  land  operations  as 
in  the  water  defense. 

Every  feature  of  the  armament  defending  the 
entrance  of  the  canal  will  embody  the  latest  im- 
provements known  to  military  science.  The  car- 
riages for  the  big  guns  have  been  specially  de- 
signed, and  were  put  through  the  most  thorough 


FORTIFICATIONS  287 

and  exacting  tests  before  their  adoption.  The 
fire-control  stations  are  said  to  be  the  last  word 
in  insuring  the  effective  use  of  the  guns.  Deter- 
mining how  a  big  gun  shall  be  aimed  so  that  its 
projectile  will  hit  a  target  10  miles  away  is  not  an 
easy  task.  Of  course,  the  gun  can  not  be  pointed 
directly  at  the  target,  since  this  would  cause  the 
projectile  to  fall  far  short  of  the  enemy,  and  also 
the  effect  of  the  wind  and  the  motion  of  the  enemy 
would  carry  it  wide  of  its  mark.  To  guess  the 
range  and  to  secure  it  by  experimentation  would  be 
to  prevent  any  effective  fire  whatever.  Therefore, 
it  is  necessary  first  to  determine  the  approximate 
range,  the  motion  of  the  enemy  and  the  velocity  of 
the  wind. 

There  is  an  ingenious  instrument  known  as  the 
range  finder,  by  which  the  approximate  distance 
of  the  target  is  determined.  This  instrument  looks 
something  like  a  cross  between  an  opera  glass  and 
a  small  telescope.  The  operator  puts  his  eyes 
to  the  opera  glass  part  of  the  range  finder  and  lo- 
cates the  enemy  just  as  one  would  with  an  ordinary 
pair  of  glasses.  When  he  locates  the  hostile  ship 
he  sees  two  images  of  it.  There  is  an  adjusting 
screw  which  he  turns  until  the  two  images  blend 
together  and  become  one.  The  turning  of  this 
screw  automatically  adjusts  a  scale  on  the  instru- 
ment, and  when  the  two  images  exactly  coalesce 
the  distance  of  the  ship  is  registered  on  the  scale. 
The  operators  in  the  fire-control  station  make  the 
necessary  calculations  as  to  the  effect  of  the  wind, 
the  motion  of  the  enemy  and  other  elements 
entering  into  marksmanship,  and  telephone  the 
results  below  to  the  men  who  aim  the  gun. 


288  THE  PANAMA  CANAL 

It  takes  two  men  to  aim  each  gun;  one  takes 
care  of  its  up-and-down  movement,  and  the  other 
of  its  right-and-left  movement.  When  the  man  in 
the  fire-control  station  telephones  that  the  enemy 
is  so  many  miles  away,  the  man  who  has  charge  of 
the  up-and-down  movement  of  the  gun  so  adjusts 
his  telescopic  sight  on  a  registering  scale  that  when 
it  is  pointed  directly  on  the  enemy  the  muzzle  of 
the  gun  will  be  elevated  high  enough  to  carry  the 
projectile  that  distance.  The  man  who  has  charge 
of  the  right-to-left  movement  adjusts  his  sight  so 
that  when  it  is  pointed  directly  at  the  enemy  the 
muzzle  of  the  gun  will  be  pointed  far  enough  to 
the  right  or  to  the  left  to  land  its  projectile  amid- 
ship  on  the  enemy.  Each  man  stands  on  a  plat- 
form and  operates  a  little  wheel  on  an  endless 
screw.  He  turns  this  wheel  backward  or  forward 
just  enough  to  keep  his  sight  exactly  on  the  enemy. 

After  the  gunners  have  received  their  instructions 
the  first  shot  is  fired,  This  is  called  a  "ranging" 
shot,  and  as  the  best  range  finder  can  not  register 
the  distance  to  the  exact  yard  it  is  necessary  for  the 
fire-control  station  to  gauge  exactly  how  far  short 
of,  or  how  far  over,  the  target  the  projectile  has 
carried.  The  up-and-down  sight  is  adjusted  in 
accordance  therewith  and  usually  the  second,  or  at 
most  the  third,  shot  gets  the  exact  range.  This 
method  of  locating  the  enemy  will  be  used  on  all 
the  fortifications  of  the  canal. 

It  is  unanimously  agreed  by  military  authorities 
that  no  naval  force  will  risk  an  open  attack 
upon  such  fortifications,  since  almost  inevitably  it 
would  result  in  the  disabling,  if  not  the  sinking,  of 
a  number  of  battleships  and  a  great  crippling  of  the 


FORTIFICATIONS  289 

enemy's  force  that  he  could  not  afford  to  risk  unless 
he  had  first  swept  the  seas  of  our  own  naval 
strength. 

In  order  to  make  certain  that  no  surprise  attack 
could  be  successful,  one  of  the  most  complete 
searchlight  equipments  to  be  found  in  any  fortress 
in  the  world  has  been  authorized  for  the  canal 
fortifications.  There  will  be  14  searchlights,  with 
60-inch  reflectors,  made  so  that  they  will  send  the 
brightest  of  white  lights  out  to  sea  and  over  the 
land  as  far  as  the  range  of  the  guns  may  reach. 
These  searchlights  cost  more  than  $20,000  each, 
and  it  requires  a  year  to  construct  the  big  mirror 
which  is  placed  in  each  of  them.  Electric  plants 
at  each  fortress  will  generate  electricity  for  the 
operation  of  the  guns  and  of  the  searchlights. 

In  anticipation  of  sudden  need  nearly  $2,000,000 
worth  of  reserve  ammunition  will  be  kept  on  the 
Isthmus.  There  will  be  70  rounds  for  the  big  16- 
inch  gun — enough  to  operate  it  constantly  for 
two  hours,  providing  for  a  shot  about  every  two 
minutes.  The  big  14-inch  guns  will  carry  a  shell 
weighing  1,400  pounds,  propelled  by  a  365-pound 
charge  of  smokeless  powder  which  will  drive  it 
through  the  air  at  an  initial  speed  of  nearly  hah6  a 
mile  a  second  —  enough  momentum  to  carry  it 
through  at  least  5  feet  of  wrought  iron.  The 
charge  of  powder  by  which  these  guns  will  hurl 
their  projectiles  on  their  death-dealing  mission, 
generates  a  force  which  would  lift  the  great 
Masonic  Temple  of  Chicago  2  feet  in  a  single 
second. 

Three  regiments  of  infantry,  1  squadron  of 
cavalry,  1  battalion  of  field  artillery,  and  12  corn- 


290  THE  PANAMA  CANAL 

panics  of  coast-defense  troops  will  be  permanently 
stationed  on  the  Isthmus.  The  field  troops,  con- 
sisting  of  the  infantry,  cavalry,  and  field  artillery, 
will  be  stationed  at  Miraflores,  where  permanent 
quarters  will  be  provided  together  with  the  neces- 
sary drill  grounds.  These  quarters  will  cost  in  the 
neighborhood  of  $3,000,000.  At  this  point  they 
can  be  maneuvered  to  advantage  and  moved  to  any 
part  of  the  Canal  Zone  needing  defense.  It  was 
originally  intended  to  place  these  troops  at  Culebra 
on  the  east  side  of  the  channel,  but  this  would 
necessitate  their  going  a  distance  of  about  5  miles 
to  get  to  a  point  where  they  could  conveniently 
cross  with  the  artillery  to  the  other  side  of  the 
canal. 

Quarters  for  eight  companies  of  coast-defense 
troops  are  being  established  on  the  Naos  Island 
dumps.  Quarters  for  two  companies  of  these 
troops  are  being  provided  at  Toro  Point,  and  for 
two  other  companies  at  Margarita  Island.  These 
will  afford  sufficient  strength  at  the  Atlantic  side 
to  man  the  guns  temporarily,  in  case  of  hostilities, 
until  any  additional  troops  needed  can  be  brought 
up.  All  of  the  troops,  both  field  and  coast  defense, 
will  be  adequately  housed  and  the  permanent 
structures  erected  for  them  will  be  as  substantially 
built  as  those  of  any  modern  army  post  in  conti- 
nental United  States.  There  will  be  drill  grounds 
large  enough  to  maneuver  the  troops  stationed  on 
the  Isthmus.  Roads  affording  access  to  all  parts 
of  the  Canal  Zone  have  been  built. 

In  addition  to  the  provisions  for  the  permanent 
forces  on  the  Isthmus,  additional  field  works  will 
be  provided  to  accommodate  the  20,000  troops 


FORTIFICATIONS  291 

which  might  be  brought  to  the  Isthmus  in  case  of 
war.  These  field  works  will  take  the  form  of 
barricaded  positions,  entrenchments,  and  other 
protective  breastworks  which  will  enable  the 
troops  to  undergo  a  state  of  siege.  It  has  been 
estimated  by  the  engineers  that  behind  such  works 
as  have  been  planned  one  defender  can  stand  off 
six  assailants,  so  that  a  body  of  20,000  mobile 
troops  under  these  conditions  could  hold  the  Isth- 
mus against  a  siege  of  100,000  for  a  reason- 
able time.  These  field  works  will  be  constructed 
principally  around  Gatun  and  Pedro  Miguel. 
The  buildings  for  the  permanent  force  stationed  on 
the  Isthmus  will  be  constructed  on  the  unit  system 
so  that  any  necessary  expansion  can  be  made. 

The  question  of  fortifying  the  canal  was  one 
which  engaged  the  serious  attention  of  Congress 
for  a  long  time.  There  were  two  main  viewpoints 
as  to  what  policy  should  be  pursued.  One  conten- 
tion was  that  the  canal  should  be  made  neutral, 
open  to  the  ships  of  all  nations,  including  the 
United  States,  on  equal  terms  even  in  case  of  war 
between  the  United  States  and  any  other  country. 
It  was  contended  by  those  who  took  this  view  that 
to  declare  it  neutral  would  render  it  immune  from 
any  attack  and  guarantee  its  perpetuity  as  a  great 
commercial  undertaking  under  the  control  of  the 
United  States. 

They  contended,  furthermore,  that  the  United 
States  was  bound,  under  the  terms  of  its  treaty 
with  Great  Britain,  to  make  the  canal  neutral 
and  that  to  fortify  it  would  be  to  violate  the 
Hay-Pauncefote  treaty.  They  asserted  that  the 
United  State^  .was.  under  solemn  obligations  to 


THE  PANAMA  CANAL 

recognize  the  principle  of  neutrality  as  applied  at 
Suez  and  offered  the  express  terms  of  the  Hay- 
Pauncefote  treaty  in  proof  of  their  contention. 
This  treaty  provided  that  "the  United  States 
adopts,  as  the  basis  of  the  neutralization  of  such  a 
ship  canal,  the  following  rules  substantially  em- 
bodied in  the  Convention  of  Constantinople, 
signed  the  twenty-eighth  of  October,  1888,  for  the 
free  navigation  of  the  Suez  Canal;  that  is  to  say: 

"First,  the  canal  shall  be  free  and  open  to  the 
vessels  of  commerce  and  of  war,  all  nations  observ- 
ing these  rules  on  terms  of  entire  equality  so  that 
there  shall  be  no  discrimination  against  any  such 
nation,  or  its  citizens  or  subjects,  in  respect  of 
the  conditions  or  charges  of  traffic,  or  otherwise. 
Such  conditions  and  charges  of  traffic  shall  be  just 
and  equitable. 

"Second,  the  canal  shall  never  be  blockaded,  nor 
shall  any  right  of  war  be  exercised,  nor  any  act 
of  hostility  be  committed  within  it.  The  United 
States,  however,  shall  be  at  liberty  to  maintain 
such  military  police  along  the  canal  as  may  be 
necessary  to  protect  it  against  lawlessness  and 
disorder. 

"Third,  vessels  of  war  of  a  belligerent  shall  not 
revictual  nor  take  any  stores  in  the  canal  except  so 
far  as  may  be  strictly  necessary;  and  the  transit  of 
such  vessels  through  the  canal  shall  be  effected 
with  the  least  possible  delay  in  accordance  with  the 
regulations  in  force,  and  with  only  such  inter- 
missions as  may  result  from  the  necessities  of  the 


service.'3 


It  will  be  seen  from  this  that  the  language  of  the 
treaty  seems  plainly  to  imply  that  the  United 


FORTIFICATIONS  293 

States  had  no  right  to  fortify  the  canal.  It  is 
interesting  to  note,  however,  that  when  the  con- 
troversy over  the  tolls  between  the  United  States 
and  England  arose,  tte  English  Government  ex- 
pressly conceded  the  right  of  the  United  States  to 
fortify  the  canal  and  to  exercise  absolute  rights  of 
sovereignty  so  far  as  military  considerations  were 
concerned.  It  would  constitute  an  interesting 
chapter  in  diplomatic  history  if  someone  would  tell 
the  real  reason  why  the  English  Government 
waived  its  rights  of  demanding  a  neutral  canal 
under  the  Hay-Pauncefote  treaty. 

Those  who  advocated  the  fortification  of  the 
canal  contended  that  the  United  States  had  ac- 
quired practical  sovereignty  over  the  Canal  Zone, 
and  that  thereunder  it  had  a  perfect  right  to  pro- 
vide for  the  defense  of  the  territory.  They 
asserted  that  the  canal  was  undertaken  because  of 
the  military  necessities  of  the  Unite  J  States,  as 
demonstrated  by  the  trip  of  the  Oregon  from  the 
Pacific  to  the  Atlantic,  during  the  Spanish- 
American  War  and  that  to  fail  to  fortify  the  canal 
would  be  to  lose  the  military  advantages  which  its 
construction  had  given  to  the  United  States. 

It  was  further  contended  that  to  allow  the  canal 
to  be  neutral  would,  in  the  case  of  war  between  the 
United  States  and  some  foreign  power,  compel  the 
United  States  to  keep  its  own  warships  out  of  the 
canal  its  own  blood  and  money  had  built,  or  else 
compel  its  permanent  operating  force  at  Panama 
to  commit  a  sort  of  legal  treason  by  putting  the 
enemy's  ships  through  the  big  waterway  on  the 
same  terms  with  American  ships. 

This  contention  was  answered  by  those  who  took 


£94  THE  PANAMA  CANAL 

the  opposite  view  with  the  statement  that  all 
treaties  would  be  suspended  in  case  of  war  and 
that  neutralization  would  cease  between  the 
United  States  and  its  enemies  at  such  a  time. 

The  other  side  replied  that  if  this  were  true,  it 
would  then  be  too  late  properly  to  fortify  the 
Isthmus,  and  that  if  the  United  States  expected 
ever  to  deny  to  any  country  the  neutrality  provi- 
sions of  the  Hay-Pauncefote  treaty,  the  fortifica- 
tions should  by  all  means  be  built  in  advance. 

The  long  and  earnest  debate  brought  forth  from 
some  the  prediction  that  England  would  not 
acquiesce  in  such  a  construction  of  the  treaty,  and 
from  others  the  statement  that  under  the  terms  of 
that  instrument  other  nations  had  a  right  to  pro- 
test against  the  fortification  of  the  canal.  In  the 
face  of  these  arguments,  however,  Congress  de- 
termined by  a  substantial  majority  to  fortify  the 
canal,  and  the  whole  world  has  acquiesced. 
England  not  only  did  not  protest,  but  in  its  toll 
controversy  notes  expressly  declared  that  the 
United  States  had  the  right  to  fortify  the  canal. 


CHAPTER  XXV 

FIXING  THE  TOLLS 

LONG  before  the  Panama  Canal  was  finished 
shipping  interests  in  every  part  of  the  world 
began  inquiring  minutely  as  to  probable 
rates  of  toll,  stating  that  it  would  be  necessary 
for  them  to  have  this  information  before  making 
plans    to  meet  the  changed   conditions.      Some 
wanted  to  plan  construction  of  new  ships,  while 
others  desired  principally  to  readjust  their  trans- 
portation lines  in  accordance  with  the  new  condi- 
tions. 

With  this  in  mind,  President  Taft  in  1912 
recommended  to  Congress  the  passage  of  a  law 
fixing  the  tolls  and  providing  for  the  permanent 
operation  of  the  canal.  Congress,  acting  upon 
this  recommendation,  passed  what  is  known  as 
the  Permanent  Canal  Law.  In  this  law  are  stated 
the  terms  under  which  the  canal  may  be  used 
by  the  shipping  world.  It  authorizes  the  Presi- 
dent to  prescribe,  and  from  time  to  time  to 
change,  the  tolls  that  shall  be  levied  by  the  Govern- 
ment of  the  United  States  for  the  use  of  the  canal. 
No  tolls  may  be  levied  on  vessels  passing  through 
the  canal  from  one  United  States  port  to  another. 
Provision  was  also  made  that  tolls  might  be  based 
upon  gross  or  net  registered  tonnage,  displacement 
tonnage,  or  otherwise,  and  that  they  might  be 

295 


296  THE  PANAMA  CANAL 

lower  on  vessels  in  ballast  than  upon  vessels 
carrying  cargo.  When  based  upon  net  registered 
tonnage,  for  ships  of  commerce,  the  tolls  can  not 
exceed  $1.25  per  ton,  nor  be  less,  other  than  for 
vessels  of  the  United  States  and  its  citizens, 
than  the  estimated  proportional  cost  of  the  actual 
maintenance  and  operation  of  the  canal.  The 
toll  for  each  passenger  was  fixed  at  not  more  than 
$1.50. 

Acting  under  the  law  authorizing  him  to  fix 
the  rates  within  the  limitations  stated  by  the  law 
itself,  President  Taft  issued  a  proclamation  fixing 
the  toll  at  $1.20  per  net  registered  ton  on  all 
ships  of  commerce,  other  than  those  carrying  cargo 
from  one  United  States  port  to  another.  The 
net  registered  ton  is  the  unit  of  measuring  a  ship's 
cargo-carrying  capacity,  used  throughout  the  world 
in  general,  and  by  British  shipping  in  particular. 
It  consists  of  100  cubic  feet  of  space,  so  that  when  a 
ship  is  measured  its  net  registered  tonnage  is 
determined  by  the  number  of  these  units  of  space 
it  contains.  A  ton  of  cargo  seldom  fills  a  hundred 
cubic  feet  of  space;  frequently  it  will  not  fill  more 
than  40  cubic  feet.  The  charge  per  ton  of  actual 
freight  under  this  toll  of  $1.20  per  net  registered 
ton  ranges  from  44  to  80  cents  a  long  ton  upon  the 
freight  carried,  depending  upon  the  class  of  cargo. 
Such  a  toll  adds  from  2  to  4  cents  per  hundred- 
weight to  the  freight  rate  between  two  points 
through  the  canal.  It  might  cost  5  cents  to 
take  a  barrel  of  flour  from  Colon  to  Panama-,  or 
vice  versa. 

While  ships  will  be  charged  tolls  on  the  basis  of 
net  registered  tonnage,  not  all  ships  carry  freight 


FIXING  THE  TOLLS  297 

upon  that  basis.  In  the  majority  of  cases  cargo 
is  taken  on  at  "ship's  option"  —  either  by  weight 
or  space.  Forty  cubic  feet  is  estimated  as  the 
space  occupied  by  an  ordinary  ton  of  freight,  and 
ships  usually  carry  cargo  at  rates  based  on  that 
amount  of  space  for  each  ton.  The  40  cubic  feet 
method  of  determining  the  amount  of  cargo  carried 
is  adopted  by  maritime  interests  because  a  long  ton 
of  wheat  occupies  about  that  amount  of  space. 
From  this  it  will  be  seen  that  for  the  purpose  of 
collecting  tolls  the  United  States  allows  100  cubic 
feet  of  space  for  a  ton,  while  the  ordinary  ship- 
ping firm  allows  only  40  feet  per  ton.  Thus  it 
happens  that  a  shipowner  charges  the  shipper 
for  carrying  2j  tons  where  the  United  States 
charges  the  shipowner  for  carrying  1  ton. 

Notwithstanding  the  fact  that  the  shipowner 
collects  for  the  carrying  of  2|  tons  where  he  pays 
toll  on  1  ton,  he  still  has  to  pay  what  seems,  in  the 
aggregate,  a  large  sum  of  money  each  time  his 
ship  passes  through  the  canal.  An  ordinary  5,000- 
ton  ship  will  be  charged  $6,000  for  passing  from 
one  ocean  to  the  other.  A  ship  like  the  Cleveland, 
the  first  around  the  world  tourist  steamer 
advertised  to  pass  through  the  canal,  will  have 
to  pay  $14,000  for  the  12-hour  trip  from  Colon 
to  Panama.  A  steamship  like  the  Lusitania 
will  have  to  put  up  some  $30,000  for  a  single  pas- 
sage. The  average  ship  will  pay  from  $5,000- 
to  $10,000  for  its  passage.  This  seems  like  a 
high  rate,  even  though  it  does  amount  to  only  2 
or  4  cents  per  hundredweight  of  cargo,  but  when 
one  takes  into  consideration  the  time  saved  in 
passing  through  the  canal,  and  the  cost  of  main- 


898  THE  PANAMA  CANAL 

taining  a  ship  on  the  high  seas,  the  rate  becomes 
a  reasonable  one. 

The  average  ship  costs  about  10  cents  per  net 
registered  ton  per  day  for  keeping  it  in  operation. 
Thus  a  10,000-ton  ship  will  save  about  a  thou- 
sand dollars  for  each  day  its  voyage  is  shortened. 
If  this  voyage  be  shortened  by  20  days,  the  ship- 
owner makes  a  net  saving  of  $8,000  when  he  selects 
the  Panama  route  over  some  other  route.  In 
fact,  he  may  save  even  more  than  this,  for  the 
other  route  might  involve  the  giving  of  additional 
space  for  bunker  coal,  which  otherwise  would  be 
used  for  cargo.  Convenient  coaling  stations  mean 
a  minimum  of  space  required  for  the  operation  of 
the  ship  and  a  maximum  of  cargo-carrying  capacity. 
In  this  way  a  merchant  ship  might  save  several 
thousand  dollars  additional  by  choosing  the  Pan- 
ama route  over  the  Strait  of  Magellan. 

It  is  estimated  that  the  tolls  it  will  be  necessary 
to  collect  to  make  the  canal  self-supporting  will 
be  $15,500,000  a  year,  since  that  amount  will  be 
required  to  meet  the  expense  of  operation  and 
return  3  per  cent  interest  on  the  investment. 
The  $15,500,000  is  made  up  of  $3,500,000  for 
operations,  $250,000  for  sanitation  and  government 
and  $11,250,000  for  interest  on  the  $375,000,000 
the  canal  cost.  This  takes  no  account  of  approxi- 
mately $10,000,000  which  will  be  required  for  the 
support  of  the  troops  on  the  Isthmus.  Should 
this  be  considered,  the  total  annual  charges  to  be 
made  would  approximate  $25,000,000,  but  this, 
in  the  view  of  those  who  have  considered  the  matter, 
is  not  a  proper  charge  against  the  cost  of  operation. 

It  has  been  stated  that  a  proper  system  of 


GATUN  SPILLWAY  FROM  ABOVE  AND  BELOW 


FIXING  THE  TOLLS  299 

finances  would  provide  for  the  repayment  of 
the  cost  of  constructing  the  canal  in  a  hundred 
years.  This  would  mean  an  annual  charge  of 
$3,750,000,  and  would  bring  the  total  annual 
outlay,  exclusive  of  the  cost  of  protection,  up  to 
$19,250,000.  From  this  viewpoint  the  canal  will 
not  be  self-sustaining  until  the  total  traffic  ap- 
proximates 17,000,000  tons  a  year,  which  it  will 
reach  about  1925. 

It  has  been  estimated  by  Prof.  Emory  R.  John- 
son, the  Government  expert  on  canal  traffic, 
that  the  total  tonnage  which  will  pass  through 
the  canal  during  the  first  year  of  its  operation 
will  approximate  10,500,000  net  registered  tons. 
Since  the  shipping  of  the  United  States  is  permitted 
to  pass  through  without  paying  tolls,  the  tonnage 
upon  which  toll  will  be  collected  will  yield  a  gross 
revenue  of  approximately  $10,000,000.  This  will 
afford  the  United  States  an  income  of  a  little 
less  than  2  per  cent  on  the  money  invested, 
after  paying  the  actual  cost  of  operation.  On  this 
basis  it  probably  will  be  four  or  five  years  from 
the  opening  of  the  canal  before  the  returns  will 
yield  3  per  cent  on  the  investment. 

The  ships  of  the  world  use  approximately  75,- 
000,000  tons  of  coal  annually.  The  opening  of 
the  Panama  Canal  will  save  several  million  tons 
a  year  and  the  money  thus  saved  will,  in  part, 
fall  into  the  coffers  of  Uncle  Sam.  A  vessel 
en  route  from  Chile  to  Europe  can  save  nearly 
enough  in  the  cost  of  coal  alone  to  pay  the  tolls 
that  will  be  exacted  at  Panama. 

When  the  United  States  came  to  frame  its 
system  of  toll  charges  and  collections,  it  was  found 


300  THE  PANAMA  CANAL 

that  there  was  a  wide  difference  of  opinion  as 
to  the  right  of  the  United  States  Government 
to  exempt  coastwise  shipping  from  the  payment 
of  tolls.  Under  the  Hay-Pauncefote  treaty  with 
Great  Britain  there  was  also  a  wide  variance 
of  opinion  as  to  the  question  of  whether  the 
United  States,  as  a  matter  of  national  policy, 
ought  to  exempt  from  the  payment  of  tolls, 
ships  trading  between  its  own  ports  on  the  two 
coasts.  These  questions  were  argued  pro  and 
con,  and  Congress  finally  decided  by  a  very  close 
vote  that  the  United  States  ought  to  allow  ships 
trading  between  its  own  ports  to  use  the  canal 
free  of  charge.  No  foreign  ships  are  permitted 
under  any  circumstances  to  engage  in  such  traffic. 

Those  who  advocated  the  exemption  of  ships 
trading  exclusively  between  United  States  ports 
from  the  payment  of  tolls,  did  so  on  the  ground 
that  it  would  build  up  a  wealthy  American  mer- 
chant marine  which  would  be  invaluable  to  the 
United  States  in  time  of  war,  and  also  that  it 
would  tend  to  reduce  freight  rates  between  Atlantic 
and  Pacific  points.  They  argued  that  every  cent 
added  to  the  cost  of  transportation  through  the 
canal  would  be  reflected  in  freight  rates  between 
the  East  and  the  West. 

Those  who  opposed  the  exemption  of  American 
coastwise  shipping  from  the  payment  of  tolls, 
asserted  that  the  coastwise  shipowners  already 
had  a  monopoly  on  the  handling  of  cargo  between 
American  ports,  and  that  no  further  encouragement 
was  needed.  They  argued  that  it  would  make 
little  or  no  difference  in  rates  whether  tolls  were 
charged  or  not,  and  that  the  only  people  who  would 


FIXING  THE  TOLLS  301 

benefit  would  be  the  shipowners.  They  contended 
that  the  United  States  ought  to  charge  everybody 
alike  and  use  the  tolls  collected  for  the  purpose 
of  repaying  the  money  it  spent  hi  building  the 
canal.  Some  of  them  also  contended  that  the 
Hay-Pauncefote  treaty  bound  the  United  States 
to  treat  all  shippers  alike,  and  that  the  United 
States  could  not  discriminate  in  favor  of  the 
American  coastwise  traffic  without  contravening 
the  treaty  with  Great  Britain.  This  view,  however, 
did  not  prevail,  and  the  law,  as  enacted,  exempted 
coastwise  shipping. 

England  immediately  protested  against  this 
exemption  on  the  ground  that  it  was  in  contra- 
vention of  the  treaty  between  the  two  countries. 
The  story  of  how  the  United  States  came  to  be 
bound  by  a  treaty  with  Great  Britain  in  the 
building  of  ar  Isthmian  canal  goes  back  for  more 
than  half  a  century.  The  year  1850  found  the 
North  American  continent,  north  of  the  Rio 
Grande,  in  the  possession  of  the  United  States, 
England,  and  Russia.  The  United  States  had 
only  recently  finished  its  continental  expansion, 
and  each  of  the  two  countries  needed  a  canal  to 
connect  their  east  and  west  coasts.  England 
had  long  possessed  a  west  coast  in  Canada,  but 
the  United  States  had  only  recently  come  into 
possession  of  a  Pacific  seaboard.  When  it  came 
to  consider  the  question  of  connecting  its  two 
coasts  the  United  States  found  that  Great  Britain 
was  holding  the  position  of  advantage  in  the 
Isthmian  region.  It  held  the  Bahamas,  Bermuda, 
Jamaica,  the  Barbados,  Trinidad,  the  Windward 
and  Leeward  Islands,  British  Guiana  and  British 


302  THE  PANAMA  CANAL 

Honduras;  and  held  a  protectorate  over  the 
"  Mosquito  Coast,"  now  the  east  coast  of  Nica- 
ragua. That  protectorate  covered  the  eastern  ter\ 
minus  of  the  only  ship  canal  then  deemed  possible. 

Under  these  conditions  the  United  States  con- 
cluded that  it  was  necessary  for  the  support  of 
the  Monroe  doctrine  that  some  sort  of  an  under- 
standing should  be  reached  between  the  two 
countries.  England  assented  to  such  an  under- 
standing only  after  Nicaragua  and  Costa  Rica 
had  given  to  the  United  States  its  consent  to  the 
building  of  a  canal  across  its  territory.  These 
treaties  with  Nicaragua  and  Costa  Rica  were 
negotiated  but  never  ratified,  and  were  used  as 
a  club  to  force  Great  Britain  to  make  a  treaty. 
The  result  was  the  Clayton-Bulwer  treaty, 
which  provided  that  neither  Government  should 
ever  obtain  or  maintain  for  itself  any  exclusive 
control  over  an  Isthmian  canal,  and  that  neither 
Government  should  ever  secure  for  itself  any 
rights  or  advantages  not  enjoyed  by  the  other 
in  such  a  canal.  The  proposed  canal  was  to  be 
entirely  neutral,  and  the  treaty  set  forth  that 
the  two  countries  agreed  jointly  to  protect  the 
entire  Isthmian  region  from  Tehauntepec  to 
South  America,  and  that  the  canal  always 
should  be  open  to  both  countries  on  equal  terms. 
The  canal  under  this  treaty  was  intended  to 
be  entirely  neutral  with  reference  to  defense, 
with  reference  to  tolls,  and  with  reference  to 
such  other  nations  as  might  join  in  maintaining 
neutrality. 

When  the  United  States  decided  to  build  the 
Panama  Canal,  it  found  the  Clayton-Bulwer 


FIXING  THE  TOLLS  303 

treaty  wholly  unsuited  to  its  aims  and  desires. 
It  therefore  asked  England  to  enter  into  a  new 
convention;  the  Hay-Pauncefote  treaty  was 
the  result.  This  document  declared  that  its 
purpose  was  to  remove  any  objections  that  might 
arise  under  the  Clayton-Bulwer  treaty  to  the 
construction  of  an  Isthmian  canal  under  the 
auspices  of  the  Government  of  the  United  States 
without  impairing  the  general  principle  of  neu- 
tralization. 

Under  this  treaty  the  Government  of  Great 
Britain  made  a  protest  against  the  decision  of  the 
United  States  to  exempt  its  coastwise  traffic 
from  the  payment  of  tolls,  claiming  such  exemption 
to  be  a  violation  of  the  neutrality  agreement. 
This  protest  came  in  the  form  of  two  notes  to  the 
American  Government.  The  first  was  written  as 
a  warning  to  Congress  that  the  British  Government 
would  regard  the  exemption  of  American  coast- 
wise traffic  from  the  payment  of  tolls  as  a  dis- 
crimination against  British  shipping,  and  a 
violation  of  the  neutrality  agreement  between  the 
two  countries.  It  admitted  that  if  the  United 
States  were  to  refund  or  to  remit  the  tolls 
charged,  it  would  not  be  a  violation  of  the  letter 
of  the  treaty,  and  acknowledged  that  if  the 
exemption  of  coastwise  American  shipping  from 
toll  charges  were  so  regulated  as  to  make  it  cer- 
tain that  only  bona  fide  coastwise  traffic,  which 
is  reserved  for  American  vessels,  would  be  bene- 
fited by  this  agreement,  then  Great  Britain  could 
have  no  objection.  But  it  declared  that  England 
did  not  believe  that  such  regulation  was  possible. 

After  Congress,  with  this  note  in  mind,  had 


304  tTHE  PANAMA  CANAL 

passed  the  canal  toll  law  with  an  exemption  to 
ships  carrying  goods  between  the  two  coasts  of 
the  United  States,  President  Taft,  in  approving 
the  measure,  declared  that  the  canal  was  built 
wholly  at  the  cost  of  the  United  States  on  territory 
ceded  to  it  by  a  nation  that  had  the  indisputable 
right  to  make  the  cession,  and  that,  therefore, 
it  was  nobody  else's  business  how  we  managed 
it.  He  contended  that  for  many  years  American 
law  had  given  to  American  ships  the  exclusive 
right  to  handle  cargo  between  American  ports, 
and  that,  therefore,  England  was  not  hurt  at 
all  when  that  shipping  was  exempted  from  toll 
charges. 

England  responded,  in  a  second  note,  that 
the  clear  obligation  of  the  United  States  under 
the  treaty  was  to  keep  the  canal  open  to  the 
citizens  and  subjects  of  the  United  States  and 
Great  Britain  on  equal  terms,  and  to  allow  the 
ships  of  all  nations  to  use  it  on  terms  of  entire 
equality.  It  also  contended  that  the  United 
States  is  embraced  in  this  term  of  "all  nations"; 
that  the  British  Government  would  scarcely 
have  entered  into  the  Hay-Pauncefote  treaty 
if  it  had  understood  that  England  was  to  be  denied 
the  equal  use  of  the  Panama  Canal  with  America. 
The  three  direct  objections  urged  by  the  British 
against  the  American  canal  law  were:  That 
it  gives  the  President  the  right  to  discriminate 
against  foreign  shipping;  that  it  exempts  coast- 
wise traffic  from  paying  tolls;  and  that  it  gives 
the  Government-owned  vessels  of  the  Republic 
of  Panama  the  right  to  use  the  canal  free.  The 
answer  of  the  United  States  to  the  first  of  these 


FIXING  THE  TOLLS  305 

objections  was  that  the  right  of  the  President  to 
fix  tolls  in  a  way  that  would  be  discriminatory 
against  British  shipping  was  a  question  that  could 
be  considered  only  when  the  President  should 
exercise  such  action. 

The  British  Government  expressed  the  fear 
that  the  United  States,  in  remitting  tolls  on 
coastwise  business,  would  assess  the  entire  charges 
of  maintenance  of  the  canal  upon  the  vessels  of 
foreign  trade  and  thus  cause  them  to  bear  an 
unequal  burden.  This,  the  second  objection  was 
answered  with  the  statement  that,  whereas  the 
treaty  gives  the  United  States  the  right  to  levy 
charges  sufficient  to  meet  the  interest  of  the  capital 
expended  and  the  cost  of  maintaining  and  opera- 
ting the  canal,  the  early  years  of  its  operation 
will  be  at  a  loss  and,  therefore,  at  a  lower  rate 
than  Great  Britain  could  ask  under  the  treaty. 
The  third  objection  was  considered  insignificant. 

The  British  Government,  after  laying  down  its 
objections  to  the  American  canal  toll  law,  re- 
quested that  the  matter  be  submitted  to  The  Hague 
tribunal  for  adjudication.  The  American  Govern- 
ment declared  that  this  course  would  not  be  just 
to  the  United  States,  since  the  majority  of  the 
court  would  be  composed  of  men,  the  interests 
of  whose  countries  would  be  identical  with  those 
of  England  in  such  a  controversy.  Before  leaving 
office  President  Taft  proposed  that  the  matter 
should  be  submitted  to  the  Supreme  Court  of  the 
United  States.  The  whole  question  was  left 
in  that  situation  when  the  change  from  the  Taft 
to  the  Wilson  administration  took  place. 

As  to  the  merits  of  the  controversy,  there  is  no 


306  THE  PANAMA  CANAL 

unanimity  of  opinion  on  either  side  of  the  Atlantic. 
Some  British  authorities  entirely  justify  the  Ameri- 
can position,  while  some  American  authorities 
take  the  British  position.  It  is  probable  that 
the  controversy  will  require  years  for  settlement. 

Before  the  canal  was  open  for  traffic  there  was 
much  speculation  as  to  what  rate  policies  the 
railroads  would  adopt  to  meet  the  situation  caused 
by  the  competition  of  the  Panama  Canal.  If 
the  same  classes  of  goods  are  handled  through 
the  canal  as  across  the  United  States,  there  will 
be  more  than  3,000  different  articles  on  the  tariff 
books  of  steamship  lines  using  the  canal.  In 
his  report  on  the  effects  of  canal  tolls  on  railroad 
rates,  Prof.  Emory  R.  Johnson  expressed  the 
opinion  that  the  payment  of  tolls  by  ships  en- 
gaged in  coast  trade  would  affect  neither  the 
rates  of  the  regular  steamship  lines  nor  the  charges 
of  the  transcontinental  railroads. 

A  provision  of  the  canal  toll  law  forbids  any 
railroad  to  be  directly  or  indirectly  interested  in 
any  ship  passing  through  the  canal,  carrying 
freight  in  competition  with  that  railroad.  This 
provision  was  inserted  to  prevent  the  railroads 
from  controlling  the  steamship  lines  using  the 
canal,  and  through  that  control  fixing  rates  be- 
tween the  two  coasts  on  such  a  basis  as  to  pre- 
vent effective  competition  with  the  railroads 
themselves.  The  result  was  that  a  number  of 
railroads  had  to  dispose  of  their  steamships 
engaged  in  coastwise  trade.  This  provision  affects 
several  Canadian  railroads,  and  after  it  was  made 
the  British  Government  served  notice  on  the 
United  States  that  it  intended  to  take  up  this 


FIXING  THE  TOLLS  307 

question  and  consider  whether  or  not  the  law  in 
this  particular  does  not  infringe  upon  British 
rights. 

Nothing  seems  more  certain  than  that,  in  the 
course  of  years,  canal  tolls  will  be  materially 
lowered  from  the  $1.20  fixed  by  the  President. 
It  seems  inevitable  that  the  Panama  Canal  and 
the  Suez  Canal  will  enter  into  a  lively  battle  for 
the  great  volume  of  trade  between  eastern  Asiatic 
and  Australasian  points  and  western  European 
ports.  On  this  dividing  line  between  the  two 
great  interoceanic  highways  there  originates  many 
millions  of  tons  of  traffic,  and  this  will  be  largely 
clear  gain  to  the  canal  which  gets  it.  The  con- 
siderations which  will  draw  this  trade  one  way  or 
the  other  are  the  rates  of  toll,  the  convenience 
of  coaling  stations,  the  price  of  coal,  and  the  cer- 
tainty of  the  ability  to  secure  proper  ship  stores. 
This  spirit  of  competition  will  probably  serve  to 
lower  rates  more  rapidly  than  they  otherwise  might 
be  reduced.  With  some  10,000,000  tons  of  traflSc 
on  the  great  divide  between  the  two  canals,  ready 
to  be  sent  forward  by  the  route  which  offers  the 
best  inducements,  it  is  certain  that  good  business 
policy  will  call  for  some  hustling  on  the  part  of 
both  canals.  As  the  business  of  the  Panama 
Canal  expands,  it  can  afford  to  reduce  rates.  With 
an  ultimate  capacity  of  80,000,000  tons  a  year, 
as  the  canal  stands  to-day,  the  rate  of  toll  could 
be  cut  down  to  25  cents  a  ton  when  that  capacity 
is  reached,  and  still  afford  the  United  States  an 
income  large  enough  to  take  care  of  the  operation 
and  maintenance  of  the  canal,  and  sanitation  and 
government  of  the  Canal  Zone,  to  meet  the  interest 


308  THE  PANAMA  CANAL 

on  the  cost  of  building  it,  and  to  amortize  the 
entire  debt  in  a  hundred  years. 

It  is  certain  that  the  United  States  made  a  good 
investment  at  Panama.  Assuming  that  the  coast- 
wise traffic  is  worth  to  the  Government  the  amount 
of  the  tolls  it  is  exempted  from  paying,  the  canal 
becomes  a  self-supporting  institution  from  the  day 
of  its  opening,  leaving  all  the  military  and  trade 
advantages  it  affords  the  United  States  as  clear 
profit. 


CHAPTER  XXVI 

THE  OPERATING  FORCE 

IT  WILL  require  a  force  of  about  2,700  per- 
sons to  operate  the  Panama  Canal.  The 
major  portion  of  this  force  will  be  engaged 
on  the  port  works  at  the  two  ends  of  the 
waterway.  With  a  large  mechanical  plant  at 
Balboa,  with  large  docks  for  the  transhipment 
of  cargo,  and  with  other  facilities  required  for 
making  the  canal  the  best  equipped  waterway 
in  the  world  for  handling  marine  business,  more 
men  will  be  needed  for  the  conduct  of  the  auxiliary 
works  than  for  actually  putting  ships  through  the 
locks. 

The  force  required  at  the  locks  will  be  com- 
paratively small.  It  will  consist  of  men  in  general 
charge  of  the  lock  operations,  men  in  charge  of 
the  towing  operations,  men  who  handle  the  vari- 
ous mechanism  and  operate  the  several  types  of 
valves  for  the  regulation  of  the  water  in  the  locks; 
and  the  general  labor  force  consisting  of  a  few 
hundred  operatives  at  each  end  of  the  canal.  A 
force  will  be  required  to  operate  the  big  hydro- 
electric station  at  Gatun  Spillway,  where  the 
electricity  for  the  operation  of  the  locks  and  for 
the  lighting  of  the  canal  will  be  generated.  An- 
other force  will  be  required  at  the  auxiliary  power 
plant  at  Miraflores  which  will  be  operated  by 

30U  . 


310  THE  PANAMA  CANAL 

steam.     Fewer    than    a    thousand    men    will   be 
required  in  putting  ships  through  the  canal. 

When  the  question  of  placing  the  canal  on  a 
permanent  operating  basis  arose  one  of  the  first 
considerations  was  the  scale  of  salaries  to  be  fixed. 
Having  in  mind  the  fact  that  salaries  paid  during 
the  construction  period  (which  were  50  per  cent 
above  the  standard  in  the  United  States)  were 
based  upon  conditions  existing  in  the  early  days 
of  the  American  occupation,  it  was  decided  that 
this  was  an  unfair  basis  for  the  permanent  or- 
ganization. The  salaries  for  the  construction  pe- 
riod were  made  high  because  they  had  to  be. 
It  was  more  a  question  of  reducing  men  to  risk 
their  lives  than  of  fixing  fair  rates  of  compensation. 
The  conclusion  reached  was  that  there  was  no 
longer  any  reason  why  the  Government  should 
pay  salaries  so  much  higher  than  obtained  in  the 
States,  especially  in  view  of  the  fact  that  all 
positions  under  the  permanent  organization  would 
carry  with  them  free  quarters,  free  medical  at- 
tendance, free  fuel,  free  light,  free  hospital  service 
and  the  like.  It  was  finally  determined  that  it 
would  be  fair  to  both  the  employee  and  the  em- 
ployer to  establish  as  a  basis  of  compensation  for 
services  in  the  permanent  organization  a  scale 
of  salaries  not  to  exceed  25  per  cent  higher  than 
obtained  for  similar  positions  in  the  United  States. 
This  decision  was  made  on  the  basis  that  it  would 
be  fair  to  the  employee  and  at  the  same  time  would 
allow  the  canal  to  be  operated  at  a  cost  which 
would  impose  no  undue  burden  on  shipping. 

When  Congress  took  up  the  matter  in  the  en- 
actment of  the  permanent  canal  law,  it  reflected 


THE  OPERATING  FORCE  311 

the  recommendations  of  the  chairman  and  chief 
engineer  of  the  Canal  Commission  in  almost  every 
particular.  With  reference  to  the  canal  employees, 
that  body  provided  that  they  should  be  appointed 
by  the  President  or  by  his  authorities,  and  that 
they  should  be  removable  at  his  pleasure;  also, 
that  their  compensation  should  be  fixed  by  him 
until  such  time  as  Congress  should  regulate  it  by 
law. 

The  head  of  the  permanent  force  on  the  Canal 

Zone  will  be  known  as  the  Governor  of  the  Panama 

Canal.     He  is  to  be  appointed  by  the  President 

with  the  advice  and  consent  of  the  Senate,  for 

a  four-year    term,    or   until   his    successor   shall 

be  appointed  and  qualified.     He  will  receive  a 

salary  of  $10,000  a  year,  and  will  be  the  personal 

representative  of  the  President  on  the  Isthmus. 

Indeed,    the    permanent    organic    act    provides 

that   the   President   himself  is   authorized,   after 

the  disbanding  of  the  Isthmian  Canal  Commission 

—  which  is  to  take  place  whenever  the  President 

thinks  the  work  has  approached  a  sufficient  degree 

of  completion  to  warrant  it  • —  to  complete,  govern, 

and  operate  the  Panama  Canal,  and  to  govern 

the  Canal  Zone,  if  he  desires  to  do   it  himself; 

or    "cause    it    to    be    completed,    governed,    and 

operated    through    a    governor    of    the    canal." 

Of  course,  the  President  will  prefer  to  "cause  it 

to  be  completed,  governed,  and  operated"  through 

such    a  governor.     As  a  matter  of  fact,  when  the 

question  of  selecting  a  governor  comes  before  the 

President  it  may  be  expected  that  he  will  choose 

a  man  in  whom  he  has  every  confidence  to  carry 

out  the  organic  law  on  the  Canal  Zone,  and  to 


812  THE  PANAMA  CANAL 

place  the  canal  in  operation.  This  man  will  be  as 
much  of  an  autocrat  on  the  Zone  under  the 
permanent  organization  as  the  chairman  and  chief 
engineer  was  during  the  construction. 

When  President  Roosevelt  undertook  to  carry 
out  the  provisions  of  the  Spooner  Act,  and  to 
hrve  the  canal  dug  by  a  board  of  seven  commission- 
ers, each  independent  of  the  other,  he  soon  found 
that  it  would  not  work.  After  repeated  trials  he 
came  to  the  conclusion  that  the  control  of 
affairs  on  the  Isthmus  should  be  concentrated 
largely  under  the  chairman  and  chief  engineer. 
He  therefore  issued  an  executive  order  requiring 
that  all  officials  on  the  Isthmus  should  report 
to  the  chairman  and  chief  engineer,  giving  him 
practically  all  control  over  the  entire  project. 
This  brought  both  the  Canal  Zone  Government 
and  the  sanitary  department  under  the  super- 
vision of  the  chairman  and  chief  engineer.  The 
result  was  a  coordination  of  the  work  and  a  satis- 
factory organization  for  its  prosecution. 

When  Congress  came  to  make  the  permanent 
canal  law  it  profited  by  the  unsatisfactory  results 
that  would  have  grown  out  of  a  rigid  adherence 
to  the  principles  of  the  Spooner  Act,  and  concen- 
trated all  authority  under  the  governor  of  the 
Canal  Zone.  There  were  those  who  thought  the 
sanitary  department  should  not  be  under  the 
control  of  the  governor,  and  still  others  who  felt 
that  the  operation  of  the  canal  probably  should 
be  under  one  man  and  the  civil  government  under 
another.  But  these  suggestions  were  not  fol- 
lowed, and  the  act  as  finally  adopted  makes  the 
President  practically  a  czar  of  the  Isthmus,  and 


THE  OPERATING  FORCE  313 

under  him  the  governor  need  give  account  to  no 
one  but  the  President. 

It  has  been  the  ambition  of  the  present  chief 
engineer  of  the  canal  to  see  the  operating  force 
fully  installed  and  things  moving  along  on  a  satis- 
factory working  basis  before  leaving  the  Isthmus. 
He  thinks  arrangements  should  be  made  whereby 
acute  changes  of  policy  should  be  prevented.  This 
he  would  do  by  having  a  principal  assistant  who 
would  succeed  the  governor  at  the  end  of  his  four- 
year  term.  This  would  permit  a  continuous  policy 
and  an  unbroken  line  of  action  which,  according  to 
his  view,  would  make  for  the  efficiency  of  the  oper- 
ating force.  In  speaking  of  this  phase  of  the  mat- 
ter, he  stated  that  were  a  new  man  chosen  at  the  end 
of  the  four-year  term  of  his  predecessor  —  a  man 
who  had  had  no  previous  experience  on  the  Isth- 
mus —  there  would  always  be  a  tendency  to  make 
radical  changes. 

He  would  have  on  the  governor's  staff  a  doctor 
from  the  Army  to  have  charge  of  the  work  of 
sanitation  on  the  Canal  Zone,  who  would  report 
directly  to  the  governor.  The  quarantine  officer, 
in  his  opinion,  should  be  under  the  Public  Health 
Service  of  the  United  States.  Under  the  plan 
as  adopted  in  the  permanent  canal  law,  any  officer 
of  the  Army  or  of  the  Navy  chosen  to  fill  a  posi- 
tion in  the  canal  operating  force  will  be  paid  the 
same  salary  as  a  civilian,  with  the  exception 
that  he  would  get  only  the  difference  between  his 
regular  Army  or  Navy  pay  and  the  salary  his 
position  carried. 

It  is  estimated  that  the  expense  of  operating 
the  canal  will  amount  to  about  $3,500,000  a  year. 


314  THE  PANAMA  CANAL 

This  includes  the  cost  of  operating  a  number  of 
dredges  which  will  have  to  be  maintained  in 
connection  with  the  canal  work.  The  estimate 
was  made  upon  the  amount  of  business  handled 
at  the  Sault  Ste.  Marie  Canal  which  has  the  largest 
traffic  of  any  canal  in  the  world. 

There  will  be  five  departments  for  the  opera- 
tion of  the  canal  outside  of  the  work  of  maintain- 
ing the  civil  government  and  sanitation.  The 
operating  department  will  have  charge  of  the 
operation  of  docks  and  wharves  at  the  terminals, 
pilotage,  lockage,  and  the  lighting  of  the  canal. 
It  is  estimated  that  it  will  cost  $400,000  a  year 
to  maintain  the  terminals,  $150,000  a  year  to 
light  the  canal,  and  that  it  will  require  60  pilots, 
at  $1,800  each  a  year,  to  take  ships  through. 
During  the  first  years  of  operation  it  is  believed 
that  a  single  shift  can  handle  all  the  business  that 
comes,  but,  as  the  years  go  by,  it  may  require  two 
shifts  and  eventually  three  to  keep  the  work  going. 

The  engineering  department  will  require  about 
500  men  and  will  have  charge  of  all  the  construc- 
tion and  repair  work  pertaining  to  the  canal 
property,  and  of  all  excavation  and  dredging 
in  the  canal.  It  will  cost  approximately  a  million 
dollars  a  year  to  maintain  this  department,  of 
which  three-fourths  will  be  required  for  the  opera- 
tion of  the  dredges  and  other  equipment  for 
keeping  the  canal  open. 

The  quartermaster's  department  will  have  charge 
of  the  construction,  repair,  and  maintenance  of  all 
buildings,  roads,  and  municipal  improvements  in 
the  Zone  settlements  and  of  the  receipt,  care,  and  is- 
sue of  all  property  and  material.  This  department 


THE  OPERATING  FORCE  315 

will  require  nearly  a  thousand  men  and  the  total 
expense  will  be  in  the  neighborhood  of  $600,000. 

The  electrical  and  mechanical  department  will 
have  charge  of  the  mechanical  and  electrical 
apparatus  belonging  to  the  canal,  and  of  the 
permanent  works  at  its  two  ends. 

The  accounting  department  will  require  some 
60  men  with  annual  salaries  amounting  to  approxi- 
mately a  hundred  thousand  dollars.  It  is  esti- 
mated that  the  cost  of  materials  for  the  operation 
of  the  canal  will  range  around  three-fourths  of  a 
million  dollars  a  year. 

The  force  which  will  be  maintained  on  the 
Isthmus,  with  their  families,  will  make  a  Canal 
Zone  population  of  approximately  5,000.  These, 
in  addition  to  the  eight  or  nine  thousand  troops 
and  marines  which  will  be  quartered  there,  will 
bring  the  total  population  up  to  about  thirteen 
or  fourteen  thousand.  Of  these  perhaps  three- 
fourths  will  be  along  the  southern  10-mile  section 
of  the  canal.  But,  in  spite  of  the  greater  popu- 
lation at  the  Pacific  side,  the  Atlantic  end  wTill 
probably  not  lack  for  attraction.  It  is  likely 
that  Gatun  Lake  will  be  stocked  with  a  supply 
of  fresh-water  fish,  and  that  shooting  preserves 
will  be  established  adjacent  to  Gatun,  to  be  con- 
ducted in  connection  with  the  Washington  Hotel 
at  Colon.  There  is  also  some  talk  of  constructing 
golf  links  adjacent  to  Gatun,  which  will  be  open 
alike  to  the  employees  of  the  canal  and  to  the 
guests  of  the  two  big  Government  hotels  —  the 
Washington  and  the  Tivoli. 

While  a  freight-carrying  steamer  will  make  its 
stay  as  short  as  possible,  the  probabilities  are 


816  THE  PANAMA  CANAL 

that  the  passenger-carrying  steamer  will  require 
at  least  48  hours  to  make  its  calls  at  the  two  ter- 
minal cities  and  pass  through  the  canal.  They 
will  probably  handle  the  major  portion  of  the 
package  cargo,  leaving  the  bulk  cargo  business 
entirely  for  freighters.  When  going  through  the 
canal  from  the  Atlantic  to  the  Pacific  they  prob- 
ably will  he  ve  cargo  bound  for  a  large  number  of 
Pacific  ports  on  diverse  routes.  This  would  be 
discharged  at  Balboa  and  there  be  put  into  other 
ships  to  be  carried  to  its  destination.  During 
the  time  the  shipping  and  unshipping  of  cargo, 
replenishing  stores,  taking  on  coal  and  like 
operations  are  being  performed,  the  traveler  will 
be  afforded  opportunity  to  get  acquainted  with 
dry  land  again,  and  to  enjoy  for  a  day  or  two  a 
respite  from  his  long  sea  journey. 

The  plan  advocated  on  the  Isthmus  for  per- 
fecting the  permanent  organization  was  as  follows: 
The  chairman  and  chief  engineer  would  call 
upon  each  of  the  departments  to  furnish  a  list  with 
the  ratings  of  the  best  men.  The  man  having  the 
best  record  would  be  offered  a  position  under  the 
permanent  organization  similar  to  the  one  held 
by  him  under  the  construction  organization. 
If  he  chose  to  accept  this  position  under  the  wage 
standard  laid  out  he  could  do  so;  if  he  did  not, 
the  next  man  would  be  given  the  opportunity, 
and  so  on  down.  In  this  way  it  was  expected 
that  the  entire  force  would  be  chosen  because  of 
records  made  in  the  service. 


CHAPTER  XXVH 

HANDLING   THE   TRAFFIC 

FOUR  or  five  years  before  the  earliest 
probable  opening  date,  shipping  inter- 
ests began  to  arrange  their  future  sched- 
ules with  respect  to  the  Panama  Canal. 

One  can  scarcely  realize  how  rapidly  the  facili- 
ties of  the  canal  will  be  utilized.  At  the  rate  of 
expansion  witnessed  in  the  world's  marine  traffic 
during  the  past  two  or  three  decades,  17,000,000 
tons  of  shipping  will  be  handled  through  the  canal 
in  1925,  27,000,000  tons  in  1935,  and  44,000,000 
tons  in  1945. 

The  maximum  capacity  of  80,000,000  tons  as- 
sumes a  passage  of  48  vessels  a  day  through  the 
canal,  or  one  for  every  half  hour  of  the  twenty- 
four.  Two  vessels  a  day  of  4,000  tons  each,  at 
the  present  charge,  will  render  the  canal  self- 
supporting. 

While  the  great  Isthmian  highway  will  be  com- 
pleted far  enough  ahead  to  be  ready  to  handle  all 
traffic  that  offers  long  before  the  official  opening 
date,  it  will,  on  the  other  hand,  never  reach  that 
stage  where  dredges  will  not  be  needed.  There 
are  22  rivers  which  wend  their  way  from  the 
watersheds  of  the  canal,  and  pour  their  loads  of 
sand  and  silt  into  it.  Of  course,  these  rivers 
are  small  —  so  small,  indeed,  that  few  of  them 

317  , 


318  THE  PANAMA  CANAL 

would  be  dignified  by  being  called  rivers  in  the 
United  States.  But  when  the  heavens  open  and 
the  floods  descend,  as  they  do  so  frequently  during 
the  rainy  season  at  Panama,  these  usually  quiet, 
lazy,  little  streams  become  almost  as  angry  as 
the  mighty  Chagres  itself,  and  they  rush  down 
to  the  canal  heavily  freighted  with  sand  and 
silt.  If  the  water  in  the  great  interoceanic  chan- 
nel is  to  be  kept  at  its  appointed  depth  of  41  feet, 
dredging  perforce  must  be  continued  from  year  to 
year,  summer  and  winter,  spring  and  fall.  And 
so  it  is  that  the  dredges  will  be  met  by  every  ship 
that  steers  its  course  from  Cristobal  to  Balboa,  or 
from  the  Atlantic  to  the  Pacific. 

Few  ships  large  enough  to  tax  the  dimensional 
capacity  of  the  locks  ever  will  go  through  the 
canal.  Full  90  per  cent  of  all  the  ships  that  sail 
the  seas  could  go  through  locks  one-half  the  size 
of  those  at  Panama.  So  far  as  commercial  ship- 
ping is  concerned,  a  15,000-ton  vessel  plying 
tropical  waters  is  considered  large,  and  a  20,000- 
ton  ship  is  an  exception.  According  to  the  best 
shipping  authorities,  the  day  when  vessels  of 
more  than  25,000  tons  will  find  it  profitable  to 
ply  on  the  routes  which  lead  through  the  Panama 
Canal  is  so  far  in  the  future  that  they  are  not  able 
to  discern  it.  With  reference  to  the  Navy,  naval 
experts  generally  agree  that  the  United  States 
will  celebrate  many  a  decade  of  passing  years 
before  a  battleship  too  large  to  use  the  present 
lock  chambers  is  a  possibility. 

When  a  ship  makes  its  maiden  voyage  through 
the  canal,  the  measurements  to  determine  its 
net  register  will  be  taken  by  the  shipping  experts 


HANDLING  THE  TRAFFIC  319 

in  the  employ  of  the  United  States.  When  this  work 
is  completed  the  master  of  the  ship  will  be  required 
to  pay  the  toll  before  he  can  take  his  vessel 
through  the  canal.  If  he  should  fail  to  pay  the 
toll  the  vessel  itself  would  be  put  on  the  block 
and  sold  at  auction,  if  necessary,  to  reimburse 
the  United  States  for  its  passage.  However,  it 
is  not  to  be  expected  that  such  contingencies  as 
these  will  arise.  When  once  a  ship  has  been 
measured,  the  formality  will  not  have  to  be  gone 
through  with  on  future  visits.  It  is  not  expected 
that  each  ship  will  be  actually  measured  for 
every  dimension  as  it  comes  to  the  canal  on  its 
first  trip,  since  its  net  register  tonnage  probably 
will  have  been  determined  long  before,  and  the 
canal  officials  will  only  check  up  the  work  already 
done  elsewhere  to  assure  its  accuracy. 

Many  ships  will  go  to  Panama  which  will  not 
use  the  canal.  For  instance,  there  will  be  those 
which  will  leave  European  ports,  loaded  in  part 
with  cargo  bound  to  Pacific  points  and  in  part 
with  cargo  for  Atlantic  points  on  the  South  and 
Central  American  coast.  Such  ships  will  simply 
call  at  Colon,  discharge  their  cargo  bound  to 
Pacific  points,  and  take  on  what  additional  cargo 
they  can  get  bound  for  points  for  which  they  are 
sailing  on  the  Atlantic  side.  In  stopping  at 
Colon  they  will  probably  replenish  their  supplies 
from  the  commissary  department  of  the  canal. 

\Yhat  the  freight  department  is  to  a  railroad 
the  cargo  ship  will  be  to  the  Panama  Canal  —  its 
greatest  revenue  producer.  Such  ships  will  do 
comparatively  little  loading  and  unloading  of 
cargo  at  either  end  of  the  canal.  The  tramp 


320  THE  PANAMA  CANAL 

steamer  will  figure  largely  in  the  traffic  that 
passes  from  ocean  to  ocean  at  Panama.  With 
no  schedule  of  sailing  dates  and  with  no  definite 
routes,  the  tramps  constitute  the  flying  squadron 
of  the  shipping  world,  moving  hither  and  thither 
seeking  cargoes  wherever  they  can  find  them. 
A  tramp  steamer  may  load  at  Liverpool  for 
San  Francisco,  reach  that  point  through  the  Pan- 
ama Canal,  and,  after  discharging  its  cargo,  go 
on  up  to  Seattle  and  load  for  China.  There  it 
may  discharge  its  cargo  again  and  go  thence  to 
India  to  pick  up  a  load  of  grain  for  Liverpool, 
passing  through  the  Suez  Canal.  Its  master 
always  will  turn  its  prow  to  the  point  where 
profitable  cargo  awaits  it,  and  this  may  carry 
it  by  Panama  once  or  a  dozen  times  a  year.  The 
line  steamers  will  have  their  regular  sailing  dates 
and  will  pass  through  the  canal  at  stated  intervals. 
The  problem  of  providing  coal  for  passing 
ships  is  one  of  the  most  important  with  which 
the  canal  authorities  will  have  to  deal.  The 
cheaper  that  commodity  can  be  sold  to  the  ships, 
the  more  attractive  the  route  will  be.  For  in- 
stance, a  10,000-ton  ship  which  saves  a  dollar 
a  ton  on  a  thousand  tons  of  coal,  saves  the  equiv- 
alent of  the  cost  of  operating  the  vessel  for  a 
period  of  from  24  to  36  hours,  and  this,  with  the 
rates  at  Suez  and  Panama  on  an  equal  basis,  gives 
at  least  one  day's  advantage  to  the  Panama 
route  in  figuring  on  a  voyage.  Pocahontas  steam- 
ing coal  costs  $2.70  per  ton  laid  down  at  Newport 
News.  Under  the  carrying  agreements  with  ship- 
ping interests  that  obtained  during  the  con- 
struction period,  this  coal  was  carried  to  Panama 


HANDLING  THE  TRAFFIC  321 

for  $1.395  a  ton.  It  is  estimated  that  the  canal 
colliers,  which  have  been  authorized  by  Congress, 
with  a  capacity  of  12,000  tons  of  coal  and  with 
a  speed  of  14  knots,  can  deliver  to  the  Isthmus  a 
half  million  tons  of  coal  a  year.  The  saving 
which  will  be  effected  by  having  the  coal  carried 
by  Government  colliers  is  a  large  one.  A  mer- 
chantman would  get  $368,000  for  delivering 
264,000  tons  of  coal,  while  the  cost  of  delivery 
by  collier  for  the  same  amount  would  approxi- 
mate $184,000.  The  average  life  of  a  collier  is 
20  years.  The  saving  effected  in  these  20  years 
by  the  Government  carrying  its  own  coal  would 
be  large  enough  to  pay  back  the  million  dollars 
which  the  collier  cost,  and  to  yield  an  additional 
profit  of  $2,630,000  during  the  life  of  the  vessel. 

The  sale  of  coal  at  Suez,  where  an  annual 
shipping  traffic  of  some  21,000,000  tons  is 
handled,  amounts  approximately  to  1,000,000  tons. 
Thus,  it  will  require  two  colliers  to  handle  the 
coal  when  the  canal  opens,  and  two  more  13 
years  later. 

Not  all  the  ships  which  use  the  canal  will  coal 
there.  For  instance,  the  Royal  Mail  Steam 
Packet  Company,  which  was  so  forehanded  in 
its  effort  to  get  a  good  share  of  the  trans-Isthmian 
traffic  that  it  acquired  the  Pacific  Steam  Navi- 
gation Company  long  before  the  canal  opened, 
is  building  a  coaling  station  at  Kingston,  Ja- 
maica, where  its  ships  will  replenish  their  bunkers. 
This  coaling  station  will,  of  course,  always  be 
at  the  disposition  of  the  British  Government 
in  case  of  war,  and  of  such  British  merchantmen 
that  choose  to  pass  that  way. 


322  THE  PANAMA  CANAL 

Some  ships  will  not  negotiate  the  canal  under 
their  own  power.  Many  small  vessels  steer  so 
badly  that  their  masters  would  be  afraid  to  risk 
them  going  through  without  aid.  For  instance, 
the  skipper  of  the  Cristobal,  one  of  the  6,000-ton 
cement-carrying  ships  bought  by  the  United 
States  a  few  years  ago,  declared,  in  discussing  this 
phase  of  the  matter,  that  he  would  be  afraid  to 
trust  his  vessel  going  through  the  canal  under 
its  own  power.  To  ships  not  sufficiently  re- 
sponsive to  their  helms,  Government  tugs  will  be 
furnished. 

Some  skippers  prefer  to  have  their  vessels 
towed  by  one  powerful  tug,  while  others  prefer 
several  smaller  ones.  Several  tugs  are  now  build- 
ing for  towing  purposes,  and  they  will  also  be 
used  to  tow  vessels  through  the  locks  in  the  early 
days  of  operation,  pending  the  completion  of  all 
of  the  electric  towing  locomotives. 

Two  floating  cranes  will  be  provided  in  the 
permanent  equipment  at  a  cost  of  a  quarter  of  a 
million  dollars  each.  These  cranes,  with  a  lifting 
power  of  250  tons,  will  be  suitable  for  any  wreck- 
ing operations  in  the  canal  and,  also,  for  lifting 
the  gates  in  case  of  repairs  being  required. 

The  canal  will  probably  be  the  death  blow  to 
the  sailing  ship  of  international  commerce.  Not 
being  able  to  negotiate  the  canal  under  their 
own  power,  and  because  of  the  dead  calms  which 
prevail  in  the  Gulf  of  Panama,  sailing  ships  will 
be  stopped  from  using  the  Isthmian  waterway. 
When  they  attempt  to  journey  around  Cape  Horn 
and  the  Cape  of  Good  Hope  in  competition  with 
steam  vessels  which  pass  through  the  Panama 


HANDLING  THE  TRAFFIC  323 

Canal,  the  operation  will  afford  such  little  profit 
that  in  the  course  of  a  few  years  they  will  have 
to  surrender  what  little  share  of  international 
commerce  they  have  succeeded  in  keeping. 

The  Panamans  are  inclined  to  think  the  United 
States  drove  a  hard  bargain  when  the  provision 
was  inserted  in  the  treaty  that  all  supplies  for  the 
building  and  operation  of  the  canal,  and  for  the 
demands  of  shipping  using  it,  when  imported  by 
the  United  States,  should  be  free  of  duty.  This 
practically  gives  the  United  States  a  monopoly 
of  the  business  of  catering  to  the  needs  of  ships 
passing  Panama.  The  present  duty  on  imports 
is  15  per  cent,  and  the  local  merchant  who  would 
sell  supplies  to  the  passing  ships  would  be  under 
the  necessity  of  adding  15  per  cent  to  his  buying 
price  before  he  could  compete  with  the  United 
States  Government  on  equal  terms.  This  ad- 
vantage is  made  all  the  more  marked  by  the 
reasons  of  the  fact  that  the  United  States  often 
can  make  much  money  out  of  the  operation  by 
selling  at  actual  cost,  the  profit  arising  from  the 
extra  shipping  which  is  thereby  attracted  to  the 
canal. 

The  United  States  will  reimburse  the  owners 
of  any  vessels  passing  through  the  locks  of  the 
canal,  under  the  control  of  its  operatives,  for 
any  injury  which  may  result  to  vessel,  cargo,  or 
passengers.  Provision  is  made  under  the  perma- 
nent canal  law  that  regulations  shall  be  promul- 
gated by  the  President  which  will  provide  for 
the  prompt  adjustment,  by  agreement,  and  im- 
mediate payment  of  claims.  In  case  of  dis- 
agreement, suit  may  be  brought  in  the  district 


324  ATHE  PANAMA  CANAL 

court  of  the  Canal  Zone  against  the  governor 
of  the  Panama  Canal.  The  law  says:  "The 
hearing  and  disposition  of  such  cases  shall  be 
expedited  and  the  judgment  shall  be  immedi- 
ately paid  out  of  any  moneys  appropriated  or 
allotted  for  canal  operation." 

The  character  of  misrepresentations  made  con- 
cerning the  canal  was  illustrated  in  a  story  pub- 
lished in  the  midsummer  of  1913.  This  story 
originated  in  London  and  declared  that  all  of 
the  big  shipping  interests  were  afraid  of  the  Pan- 
ama Canal,  and  that  Lloyds  would  insure  ves- 
sels and  cargo  only  at  much  advanced  rates. 
The  article  went  on  to  state  that  the  represent- 
ative of  one  of  the  biggest  European  lines  had 
visited  the  Isthmus  and  had  returned  with  the 
announcement  that  his  company  could  not  afford 
to  trust  its  vessels  in  the  canal. 

As  a  matter  of  fact,  with  the  United  States 
Government  standing  responsible  for  any  damage 
sustained  in  the  canal,  no  shipping  interest  could 
sensibly  regard  it  as  extra  hazardous  to  pass 
through  it;  rather,  it  would  be  less  hazardous 
than  to  negotiate  the  tortuous  Strait  of  Magel- 
lan, where  thousands  of  wrecks  tell  of  unseen 
dangers,  or  to  round  Cape  Horn  with  its  fierce 
storms  and  its  grave  perils. 

Much  has  been  said  about  the  probability  of 
injury  to  the  canal  by  persons  of  evil  intent,  and 
the  Panama  Canal  law  imposes  heavy  penalties 
on  anyone  attempting  to  inflict  such  an  injury. 
The  law  provides  that  the  governor  of  the  Canal 
Zone  shall  make  rules  and  regulations,  subject 
to  the  approval  of  the  President,  touching  the 


HANDLING  THE  TRAFFIC  325 

right  of  any  person  to  remain  upon  or  pass  over 
any  part  of  the  Canal  Zone.  "Any  person 
violating  these  rules  or  regulations  shall  be  guilty 
of  a  misdemeanor  and,  upon  conviction  in  the 
district  court  of  the  Canal  Zone,  shall  be  fined 
not  exceeding  $500  or  imprisoned  not  exceeding 
a  year,  or  both  penalties  in  the  discretion  of  the 
court.  Any  person  who,  by  any  means  or  any 
way,  injures  or  obstructs  or  attempts  to  injure 
or  obstruct  any  part  of  the  Panama  Canal,  or  the 
locks  thereof,  or  the  approaches  thereof,  shall  be 
deemed  guilty  of  a  felony  and  on  conviction  shall 
be  punished  by  a  fine  not  to  exceed  $10,000  or 
by  imprisonment  not  to  exceed  20  years,  or  by  the 
infliction  of  both  of  these  penalties.  If  the  act 
shall  cause  the  death  of  any  person  within  a 
year  and  a  day  thereafter,  the  person  so  convicted 
shall  be  guilty  of  murder  and  shall  be  punished 
accordingly."  As  a  further  precaution,  individ- 
uals will  not  be  allowed  to  approach  the  locks 
with  any  sort  of  packages  unless  they  are  properly 
vouched  for. 

The  possibility  of  serious  injury  to  the  locks 
will  be  carefully  guarded  against.  They  will 
be  lighted  at  night  by  electric  lamps  of  large 
candlepower  and  the  whole  lock  structure  will 
be  kept  as  light  as  day  throughout  the  night. 
Men  will  be  always  on  sentry  duty,  and  an  ade- 
quate system  of  intercommunication  will  enable 
the  sentries  to  call  out  a  guard  large  enough  to 
repulse  any  attack  of  any  small  surprising  party. 


CHAPTER  XXVIII 

THE  REPUBLIC  OF  PANAMA 

THE  Republic  of  Panama  is  one  of  the  small- 
est countries  in  the  world,  its  territory 
being  about  equal  to  that  of  the  State  of 
Indiana.  It  has  no  national  debt,  and  has 
$7,000,000  invested  in  mortgages,  on  real  estate  in 
New  York  City. 

When  it  received  $10,000,000  from  the  United 
States,  in  payment  for  the  rights  under  which  the 
Panama  Canal  was  built,  it  immediately  invested 
about  75  per  cent  of  it,  using  the  remainder  for 
paying  the  expenses  of  the  revolution,  and  for 
setting  the  new  government  on  its  feet.  It  now 
receives  $250,000  a  year  from  the  United  States  as 
rental  for  the  Canal  Zone,  and  this,  with  the 
$350,000  received  as  interest  from  its  real  estate 
mortgages  in  New  York,  gives  it  an  annual  income 
of  $600,000  outside  of  money  raised  by  the  usual 
processes  of  taxation. 

Under  the  treaty  with  the  United  States,' 
Panama  has  its  independence  guaranteed,  and 
recognizes  the  right  of  the  United  States  to  main- 
tain order  within  its  boundaries.  This  entirely 
does  away  with  the  necessity  of  maintaining  an 
army  and  navy.  The  result  is  that  with  no 
appropriations  required  for  military  purposes, 
and  with  a  $600,000  income  from  the  Canal 

326 


THE  REPUBLIC  OF  PANAMA          327 

Zone,  it  enjoys  one  of  the  lowest  tax  rates  in  the 
world. 

Although  the  Republic  of  Panama  has  its 
Declaration  of  Independence  and  its  Glorious 
Fourth,  the  former  was  written  by  a  foreigner,  and 
the  latter  occurs  in  November.  There  is  some 
dispute  as  to  who  wrote  the  declaration  of  indepen- 
dence, but  the  best  information  points  either  to 
Philippe  Bunau-Varilla,  a  Frenchman,  or  to  William 
Nelson  Cromwell,  an  American.  These  two  gen- 
tlemen differ  upon  this  subject,  each  claiming  that 
he  was  the  Thomas  Jefferson  of  Panama. 

When  the  $10,000,000  was  paid  to  Panama  by 
the  United  States,  one  of  the  first  things  done  was 
to  build  a  university,  locally  known  as  the  National 
Institute.  Some  $800,000  was  spent  in  the  con- 
struction of  the  buildings,  which  are  located  near 
the  line  of  the  Canal  Zone.  But  it  so  happens  that 
Panama  has  few  teachers  qualified  to  hold  univer- 
sity chairs,  and  fewer  students  qualified  to  pursue 
university  courses;  and  the  result  is  that  the  uni- 
versity is  more  a  place  of  buildings  than  a  seat  of 
learning. 

No  other  country  in  the  world  calls  in  another 
nation  to  superintend  its  elections.  When  the 
first  presidential  election  was  held  the  United 
States  took  the  initiative  and  demanded  the  right 
to  supervise  the  balloting.  Before  the  second 
election  was  held  the  President  became  ambitious 
to  succeed  himself,  although  the  constitution  pro- 
vided that  he  could  not  do  so.  He  thereupon  de- 
cided to  resign  for  a  period  of  six  months,  in  favor 
of  one  of  his  partisans,  thinking  that  this  would 
allow  him  to  live  up  to  the  letter  of  the  constitution 


328  THE  PANAMA  CANAL 

even  though  he  were  violating  its  spirit  in  becoming 
a  candidate  for  reelection.  This  situation  was 
brought  to  the  attention  of  the  United  States,  and 
the  President  was  politely  but  firmly  informed  that 
the  subterfuge  would  not  be  permitted.  When  the 
election  approached  each  side  thought  that  the 
other  was  trying  to  win  by  fraud,  and  the  United 
States  was  asked  to  referee  the  political  battle. 

The  City  of  Panama  is  famous  for  its  wickedness. 
Men  who  have  seen  the  seamy  side  of  life  in  all  of 
the  big  cities  of  the  world  declare  that  Panama  is  as 
bad  as  the  worst  of  them.  Until  a  few  years  ago 
bull-fighting  was  permitted,  but  the  bulls  were  so 
poor  and  the  fighters  were  such  butchers  that  the 
Government  finally  outlawed  this  form  of  entertain- 
ment. Cock-fighting  persists,  and  numerous  cock 
pits  are  popular  resorts  every  Sunday.  Nowhere 
else  can  one  witness  a  greater  frenzy  in  betting  than 
at  one  of  these  cocking  mains.  The  backers  of  the 
rival  birds  nod  their  heads  and  place  their  bets  so 
rapidly  that  it  is  more  bewildering  to  the  onlooker 
than  the  bidding  at  an  auctioneer's  junk  sale. 

The  prize  ring  has  succeeded  the  bull  ring  in 
gratifying  the  Spaniard's  thirst  for  gore,  and 
scarcely  a  Sunday  passes  that  there  is  not  a  prize 
fight  in  Panama.  Few  Americans  who  attend  them 
come  away  without  a  feeling  of  disgust  over  the  poor 
fighting,  the  brutality,  and  the  trickery  resorted  to. 

While  the  Americans  have  done  so  much  for 
public  cleanliness  in  Panama  and  Colon,  the  masses 
seem  to  know  little  more  about  sanitary  living  to- 
day than  before  the  Americans  came.  The 
stenches  which  greet  the  visitor  in  the  native 
quarters  are  no  less  odorous  than  those  encoun- 


THE  REPUBLIC  OF  PANAMA          329 

tered  in  other  cities  of  tropical  America.  The 
bathtub  is  an  unknown  quantity  among  the  masses. 
Most  of  the  natives  who  live  in  the  cities  are  en- 
gaged in  some  line  of  small  trade.  It  may  be  that 
a  shop  has  only  a  platter  of  sweetmeats  and  a  few 
bottles  of  soda  on  ice,  and  that  another  has  only  a 
bushel  of  different  kinds  of  tropical  fruits,  but  out 
of  the  small  sales  large  families  manage  in  some 
way  to  exist.  The  markets  open  early  in  the 
morning.  There  is  no  spirit  of  rivalry  among  the 
market  men,  and  they  act  usually  as  if  they  were 
conferring  a  favor  upon  the  buyer.  At  the  markets 
many  Indians  are  encountered  who  bring  their 
wares  from  the  interior  and  offer  them  for  sale. 
These  usually  consist  of  pottery,  net  bags,  charcoal 
and  the  like. 

Life  among  the  Panamans  in  the  jungle  is  simple 
indeed.  With  his  machete  the  householder  may 
provide  a  thatched  roof  for  his  mud-floored  hut, 
and  he  can  raise  enough  beans,  plantains  and 
yams,  and  burn  enough  charcoal,  and  catch  enough 
fish  to  meet  all  of  his  needs.  In  the  kitchen  the 
principal  utensils  are  gourds  and  cocoanut  shells. 
The  most  tempting  morsel  that  the  Panaman  can 
get  is  the  iguana,  a  lizard  as  big  as  a  cat,  whose 
meat  is  said  to  taste  like  spring  chicken.  It  is 
about  the  ugliest  creature  in  the  animal  world,  and 
yet  it  means  more  to  the  native  Panaman  than 
does  possum  meat  to  the  cotton-field  darky  of  the 
South. 

The  unconscious  cruelty  of  the  average  native  is 
remarked  by  almost  every  visitor.  He  is  usually 
too  lazy  to  be  conscious  of  cruelty,  for  that  would 
require  exertion.  When  he  catches  the  iguana, 


330  THE  PANAMA  CANAL 

for  instance,  he  takes  it  alive  so  that  it  may  be 
fattened  before  being  killed.  Its  short  legs  are 
twisted  and  crossed  above  its  back,  and  the  sharp 
claw  of  one  foot  is  thrust  through  the  fleshy  part  of 
the  other,  so  as  to  hold  them  together  without 
other  fastening.  The  tail,  being  useless  for  food,  is 
chopped  off  with  the  machete,  and  thus  mutilated 
and  unable  to  move,  the  lizard  is  kept  captive  until 
fat  enough  to  eat. 

The  fruits  of  Panama  are  neither  so  numerous 
nor  so  plentiful  as  those  of  Nicaragua  or  Jamaica. 
The  mamei  is  a  curious  pulpy  fruit  the  size  of  a 
peach,  with  a  skin  like  chamois  and  with  a  smooth 
pit  the  size  of  a  peach-stone.  The  sapodilla  is  a 
plum-colored  fruit  with  seeds  in  a  gelatinous  mass. 
One  is  usually  introduced  to  the  sapodilla  with  the 
remark  that,  although  the  seeds  are  eaten,  they 
have  never  been  known  to  cause  appendicitis. 

Cedar  is  preferred  to  mahogany  in  Panama. 
The  Indians  make  their  cayucas  out  of  mahogany 
logs,  and  it  is  not  uncommon  to  see  bridges  40  feet 
long  and  5  feet  thick,  made  of  mahogany  logs 
which  would  be  worth  several  thousands  of  dollars 
in  an  American  furniture  factory. 

Panama  is  famous  for  its  tropical  flowers. 
Many  of  them  are  beautiful,  but  few  are  sweet 
smelling.  Orchids  abound,  especially  on  the 
Atlantic  side,  and  while  the  waters  of  the  Chagres 
were  being  impounded  in  Gatun  Lake,  native  boat- 
men would  go  out  in  their  cayucas  and  gather 
orchids  from  the  trees.  One  of  the  most  beautiful 
of  the  orchids  of  Panama  is  the  Holy  Ghost  orchid. 
It  blooms  biennially,  and  when  its  petals  fold  back 
they  reveal  a  likeness  to  a  dove. 


THE  REPUBLIC  OF  PANAMA          331 

Some  of  the  American  women  on  the  Canal  Zone 
became  enthusiastic  collectors  of  tropical  flowers. 
Among  these  were  Mrs.  David  Du  Bose  Gaillard 
and  Mrs.  Harry  Harwood  Rousseau.  Both  of 
these  ladies  spent  much  time  hunting  orchids  and 
other  flowers  for  the  verandas  of  their  houses  and 
for  their  gardens.  Mrs.  Rousseau  made  trips  into 
several  of  the  other  countries  of  Central  America 
in  her  quest  for  new  orchids.  The  collections 
made  by  these  two  ladies  represent  the  finest  on 
the  whole  Isthmus  of  Panama. 

The  animal  life  of  the  Isthmus  is  not  abundant, 
although  some  deer  and  a  few  tapirs  are  to  be 
found.  Alligators  abound  in  the  Chagres  River 
and  other  streams  of  the  Zone.  Perhaps  the  most 
interesting  form  of  animal  life  to  be  found  on  the 
Isthmus  is  the  leaf-cutting  ant.  This  ant  seems 
to  be  nature's  original  fungus  grower.  As  one 
walks  around  the  American  settlements,  he  fre- 
quently comes  upon  a  long  path  filled  with  ants, 
passing  back  and  forth.  They  resemble  a  sort 
of  miniature  yacht  under  full  sail,  except  that  the 
sails  are  green  instead  of  white.  Upon  closer  ex- 
amination it  is  found  that  what  seemed  to  be  a  sail 
is  a  triangular  piece  of  leaf  carried  on  the  back  of 
the  ant,  with  its  edges  to  the  wind  so  as  to  overcome 
air  resistance.  The  ants  do  not  gather  these 
leaves  for  food,  but  they  store  them  in  such  a  way 
that  a  fungus  grows  upon  them.  They  eat  the 
fungus,  and  when  the  leaves  are  no  longer  useful 
they  are  thrown  out  and  new  supplies  brought  in. 

The  native  remedies  used  by  the  Panamans  are 
many  and  interesting.  For  stomach  troubles, 
which  are  very  rare,  they  eat  papaya.  The  papaya 


832  THE  PANAMA  CANAL 

is  a  sort  of  fruit  which  might  be  a  cross  between  a 
cantaloupe,  a  watermelon  and  a  pumpkin,  except 
that  it  grows  on  trees.  It  has  the  rind  of  a  green 
pumpkin,  the  meat  of  a  cantaloupe,  and  the  seeds 
of  a  watermelon.  It  is  probably  richer  in  vegetable 
pepsin  than  any  other  plant  in  existence  —  a  pepsin 
which  neutralizes  either  alkaline  or  acid  conditions 
in  the  stomach.  It  is  said  that  a  tough  steak, 
wrapped  in  the  leaf  of  the  papaya  tree  overnight, 
becomes  tender  as  the  result  of  the  digestive  action 
of  the  pepsin  in  it. 

The  Indians  and  Panamans  who  live  in  the  jun- 
gle use  the  wood  of  the  cacique,  or  "monkey 
cocoanut,"  to  stop  any  flow  of  blood.  In  their 
materia  medica  they  have  a  large  number  of  tropi- 
cal plants  which  they  use  for  their  ailments. 

The  way  in  which  sanitary  instruction  may  be 
made  efficient  is  illustrated  among  some  of  the 
people  of  Panama.  Upon  one  occasion  the  Canal 
Record  carried  a  small  diagram  of  how  to  make  a 
sanitary  drinking  cup  out  of  a  sheet  of  paper. 
After  that  there  were  many  Panamans  who,  al- 
though in  a  hundred  ways  indifferent  to  contagion, 
would  no  longer  drink  from  common  drinking  cups, 
but  would  make  their  own  sanitary  cups.  Even 
the  Jamaican  negroes  employed  around  the  offices 
of  the  commission  in  many  instances  would  not 
think  of  using  the  common  drinking  glass  at  the 
office  water-cooler. 

Two  tribes  of  Indians  on  the  Isthmus  have  not 
mixed  with  the  Caucasians  or  the  negroes.  They 
are  the  Chucunoques  and  the  San  Bias  Indians. 
The  latter  tribe  has  never  been  known  to  allow  a 
white  man  to  remain  in  its  territory  after  sun- 


THE  REPUBLIC  OF  PANAMA          333 

down.  Even  the  higher  officials  of  the  Panaman 
Government  are  forced  to  respect  this  tradition 
when  they  treat  with  the  San  Bias  chiefs. 

Government  land  in  Panama  can  be  bought  at 
the  rate  of  $49.60  for  247  acres,  with  reductions  for 
larger  areas.  The  Government  invites  foreign 
capital,  declaring  that  the  United  States  stands  as 
a  perpetual  guarantee  against  revolutions  within 
and  aggressions  without. 

The  story  of  the  early  days  in  Panaman  history 
is  a  strange  admixture  of  romance  and  cruelty. 
The  Isthmus  was  discovered  in  1500,  and  first 
settled  by  an  adventurer  who  had  been  the  Royal 
Carver  in  the  king's  household  at  Madrid.  Balboa, 
carrying  with  him  a  small  force  of  men  and  a  lot 
of  bloodhounds,  one  of  them  a  dog  of  mighty 
prowess,  known  as  Lioncico,  or  "Little  Lion," 
which  drew  a  captain's  pay  because  of  its  fighting 
qualities,  crossed  the  Isthmus  in  1513  and  dis- 
covered the  Pacific  Ocean.  After  him  came  a 
new  governor  of  the  Isthmus,  who  put  Balboa  to 
death. 

The  Spaniards  were  unspeakably  cruel  to  the 
Indians.  Even  those  who  received  them  kindly 
were  tortured  and  roasted  to  death,  because  they 
did  not  produce  enough  gold.  One  governor  rode 
a  mule,  which  was  noted  for  the  frequency  of  its 
braying.  The  Indians  were  taught  that  the  mule 
was  asking  for  gold,  and  in  meeting  these  demands 
they  not  only  had  to  give  what  they  possessed,  but 
were  forced  to  rob  the  graves  of  their  ancestors  as 
well.  Upon  one  occasion  the  Indians,  having  cap- 
tured a  number  of  Spaniards,  melted  a  lot  of  the 
yellow  metal  and  poured  it  down  their  throats, 


334  THE  PANAMA  CANAL 

telling  them  to  drink  until  their  thirst  for  gold  was 
quenchedo 

After  the  Spaniards  had  established  themselves 
upon  the  Isthmus,  the  English  buccaneers,  Drake 
and  Morgan,  fell  upon  their  cities  and  despoiled 
them.  The  ruins  at  Old  Panama,  which  once  was 
a  city  of  30,000  inhabitants,  to-day  tell  the  story  of 
the  effective  work  of  Henry  Morgan  when  he  raided 
it  and  captured  its  treasure. 

While  the  Spanish  conquerors,  the  French  fili- 
busters, and  the  English  buccaneers,  who  took 
their  turns  in  pillaging  Panama,  were  cruel  beyond 
imagination,  they  were  always  famous  for  their 
outward  evidences  of  religion  and  piety.  The 
Spanish  were  always  chanting  hymns  and  honoring 
the  saints;  the  French  would  shoot  down  their  own 
soldiers  for  irreverent  behavior  during  mass;  the 
English  pirate  captains  never  failed  to  hold  divine 
services  on  Sunday,  and  often  prohibited  profanity 
and  gambling. 

Where  once  Spaniards  tortured  Indians  and 
British  buccaneers  raided  Spaniards,  where  once 
revolution  after  revolution  left  a  poor  and  desolate 
country,  to-day  the  gates  of  Panama  are  open  to 
the  world,  and  its  trade  is  invited  again  to  pass  that 
way.  The  people  of  the  Isthmus  believe  that  the 
glory  which  departed  when  Morgan  sacked  Old 
Panama,  forcing  the  Pacific  trade  to  seek  the 
Strait  of  Magellan,  will  return  with  the  opening 
of  the  Panama  Canal,  and  that  their  capital, 
whose  walls  cost  so  much  that  the  Spanish  king 
thought  he  could  see  them  from  his  chamber 
window  in  Madrid,  will  retrieve  its  ancient  glory. 


CHAPTER  XXIX 

OTHER  GREAT  CANALS 

WHILE  the  Panama  Canal  seems  destined 
to  endure  for  all  time  as  the  greatest  arti- 
ficial ship  way  in  the  world,  there  are  other 
waterways,  while  small  in  comparison,  that  are  in 
themselves  wonderful  works  of  engineering.  In 
point  of  traffic  the  greatest  canal  in  the  world  is 
the  Sault  Ste.  Marie  Canal,  popularly  called  the 
"Soo."  In  point  of  economy  of  distance  and 
world-affecting  consequence  the  Suez  Canal  ranks 
with,  or  next  to,  Panama. 

The  Suez  Canal  was  built  while  the  Civil  War 
was  raging  in  the  United  States,  and  was  opened 
for  the  passage  of  vessels  on  November  17,  1869. 
It  is  about  twice  as  long  as  the  Panama  Canal,  the 
distance  from  Port  Said,  at  the  Mediterranean  ter- 
minus, to  Suez  at  the  Red  Sea  end,  being  approxi- 
mately 100  miles.  When  constructed  its  depth 
was  26  feet,  3  inches,  and  its  bottom  width  72  feet. 
The  maximum  vessel  draft  permitted  was  24  feet 
7  inches.  The  canal  was  in  operation  for  11  years 
before  vessels  of  this  draft  presented  themselves 
for  passage. 

During  the  first  dozen  years  of  its  operation 
various  curves  were  straightened,  the  turning-out 
places  where  vessels  passed  one  another  were  en- 
larged, and  their  number  increased  to  13.  This 

335 


330  THE  PANAMA  CANAL 

work  of  straightening  curves  and  widening  the 
canal  has  continued  from  that  time  until  the  pres- 
ent, and  to-day  vessels  may  pass  one  another 
through  a  large  part  of  its  length.  The  policy 
increasing  the  general  dimensions  of  the  canal  was 
begun  in  1887.  By  1890  its  depth  had  been  in- 
creased to  29J  feet,  so  that  it  could  accommodate 
ships  having  a  draft  of  26  feet  3  inches.  The  work 
of  deepening  continued,  and  when  the  United 
States  began  to  build  the  Panama  Canal  this  work 
was  speeded  up,  so  that  by  1908  a  depth  of  32f  feet 
was  attained  and  vessels  of  28  feet  draft  could  be 
accommodated.  In  1909  it  was  decided  that  it 
would  be  necessary  to  make  the  canal  still  deeper, 
and  a  project,  which  will  not  be  completed  until 
1915,  was  then  undertaken,  calling  for  a  depth  of 
36  feet  1  inch.  By  1898  the  width  of  the  canal 
had  been  increased  from  72  feet  to  98J  feet.  This 
is  now  being  still  further  increased  to  134|  feet. 
Even  when  this  project  is  completed  in  1915,  the 
Panama  Canal  still  can  accommodate  ships  of  5 
feet  greater  draft  than  the  Suez  Canal. 

The  maximum  draft  of  ships  permitted  to  use  the 
Suez  Canal  is  demanded  in  comparatively  few 
instances.  A  recent  report  showed  that  94  per 
cent  of  the  ships  using  the  canal  had  a  draft  of  less 
than  26J  feet,  and  that  only  1  per  cent  had  a 
draft  of  28  feet.  The  increase  in  the  depth  of  the 
canal,  therefore,  was  made  largely  in  anticipation 
of  future  shipping  requirements. 

When  the  canal  was  completed  it  required  49 
hours  for  a  ship  to  pass  through  it.  The  growth  in 
its  dimensions,  together  with  the  increase  in  the 
number  and  size  of  passing  stations,  the  straighten- 


OTHER  GREAT  CANALS      337 

ing  of  curves,  and  the  improvement  of  facilities, 
have  brought  down  to  17  hours  the  average  length 
of  time  required  for  the  transit.  Ships  not 
equipped  with  electric  searchlights  are  not  per- 
mitted to  pass  through  at  night.  The  improve- 
ments being  made  on  the  canal  are  being  paid  for 
mainly  from  the  revenues  derived  from  tolls. 

The  Suez  Canal  was  constructed,  and  has  been 
enlarged  and  managed,  by  a  private  corporation 
which  has  invested  from  the  beginning  of  the  con- 
struction up  to  the  present  time  about  $127,000,000 
of  which  approximately  two-thirds  has  been  se- 
cured from  the  sale  of  securities,  and  one-third 
from  the  earnings.  The  original  capital  of  the 
Suez  Canal  Company,  issued  in  1859,  was  400,000 
shares  of  $100  each.  These  shares  partake  of  the 
nature  of  both  bonds  and  stock,  for  they  are  en- 
titled to  interest  of  5  per  cent  as  well  as  to  partici- 
pation in  the  company's  profits.  Provision  is  made 
for  their  redemption,  but  when  redeemed  they 
continue  to  share  in  the  profits  and  merely  lose  the 
interest-bearing  feature.  On  December  31,  1911, 
378,231  of  these  shares  were  in  circulation. 

In  1875  the  British  Government,  through  Lord 
Beaconsfield,  purchased  the  176,602  shares  held  by 
the  Khedive  of  Egypt,  paying  some  $20,000,000 
for  them.  The  British  Government  does  not  own 
a  majority  of  the  shares,  and  the  Suez  Canal  is 
controlled  and  operated  by  a  French  company. 
The  annual  dividends  have  increased  from  4.7  per 
cent  to  33  per  cent.  The  shares  are  closely  held 
and  trading  in  them  is  light.  The  stock  sells  at  a 
premium  of  over  1,000  per  cent.  When  the  work 
of  building  the  canal  was  undertaken,  100,000 


338  THE  PANAMA  CANAL? 

shares  were  given  to  the  founders.  These  shares 
are  not  stock,  but  are,  rather,  certificates  of  obli- 
gation, requiring  the  company  to  pay  10  per  cent 
of  its  profits  to  the  promoters  and  founders  of  the 
original  company  and  their  heirs  and  assigns.  The 
net  profits  of  the  canal  amount  to  about  $17,000,000 
a  year.  Of  this  the  stockholders  get  $12,000,000, 
the  Egyptian  Government  $2,500,000,  the  found- 
ers of  the  company  $1,500,000  and  the  administra- 
tive officers  and  the  employees  divide  $100,000 
among  them. 

The  traffic  of  the  Suez  Canal  during  the  first 
two  years  was  relatively  small,  for  the  reason  that 
the  canal  is  not  a  practicable  one  for  sailing  vessels, 
and  steam  vessels  had  to  be  built.  These,  being 
much  less  efficient  than  freight  steamers  are  to-day, 
were  slow  in  securing  the  trade  that  had  been  en- 
joyed by  the  sailing  vessels.  The  rate  of  tolls 
charged  by  the  Suez  Canal  Company  has  declined 
steadily  since  the  canal  went  into  operation.  On 
January  1,  1912,  they  approximated  $1.30  a  ton, 
with  a  reduction  of  nearly  a  third  for  vessels  in 
ballast.  On  January  1,  1913,  the  rate  was  made 
approximately  $1.20  a  ton,  the  fraction  of  a  cent 
higher  than  the  rate  at  Panama.  The  passenger 
tolls  are  $2  for  passengers  above  12  years  and  $1 
for  children  from  3  to  12  years  of  age;  children  be- 
low 3  years  are  carried  free.  The  highest  toll 
charged  on  the  Suez  Canal  was  in  1874  when  it 
was  $2.51  a  ton. 

The  Suez  Canal  has  proved  highly  profitable  to 
its  owners.  No  one  believes  that  the  Panama 
Canal  will  yield  as  great  a  return  on  the  capital 
invested.  The  cost  of  the  Panama  Canal  will  be 


OTHER  GREAT  CANALS      339 

four  times  the  cost  of  Suez,  and  it  is  doubted  by 
traffic  authorities  whether  the  Panama  Canal  will 
ever  handle  as  much  business. 

The  Manchester  Ship  Canal,  which  connects 
Manchester  with  Liverpool,  was  constructed  only 
after  years  of  preliminary  agitation.  There  was 
opposition  by  the  railways,  and  from  the  industrial 
and  commercial  centers  with  which  Manchester 
competes.  Over  300  petitions  were  presented  to 
Parliament  before  its  consent  was  obtained  for  the 
construction  of  the  canal.  Work  was  begun  in 
November,  1887,  at  which  time  it  was  estimated 
that  the  canal  would  cost  $42,000,000.  It  was 
opened  for  traffic  January  1, 1894,  after  $75,000,000 
had  been  spent  in  building  it.  Of  this  about 
$60,000,000  went  into  actual  construction  work. 
The  Manchester  Canal  is  35 J  miles  long.  It  ex- 
tends from  Eastham,  about  6  miles  from  Liverpool, 
to  Manchester.  Its  original  depth  was  26  feet, 
but  this  has  been  increased  to  28  feet.  Ships  with 
a  length  of  550  feet,  a  beam  of  61  feet,  a  height  of 
70  feet,  and  a  draft  of  27  feet  can  use  the  canal. 
There  is  a  difference  of  58  feet  6  inches  in  level 
between  Eastham  and  Manchester,  and  this  is 
overcome  by  five  sets  of  locks.  The  highest  lift  is 
16  feet. 

The  Manchester  Canal  Company  owns  the 
Bridge  water  Canal  and  makes  connections  with  13 
other  barge  canals.  It  handles  about  6,000,000 
tons  of  freight  a  year,  of  which  the  bulk  is  sea- 
borne. Although  it  connects  with  13  barge  canals, 
the  amount  of  barge  traffic  handled  is  less  to-day 
than  it  was  a  decade  ago.  From  the  beginning  the 
Manchester  Canal  has  had  to  compete  with  the 


340  THE  PANAMA  CANAL 

railroads,  and  they  cut  their  rates  to  such  a  basis 
that  they  get  the  business  and  force  the  canal 
company  to  operate  as  a  losing  venture  to  its 
stockholders. 

In  spite  of  the  competition  of  the  railroads,  the 
canal  has  managed  to  increase  its  business  at  about 
the  same  rate  that  traffic  through  the  Suez  Canal 
has  increased,  and  a  little  more  rapidly  than  it  has 
been  estimated  that  traffic  through  the  Panama 
Canal  will  grow.  The  shareholders  have  not  yet 
received  any  dividends,  but  it  seems  probable  that 
in  the  course  of  a  few  years  all  of  the  securities  will 
earn  an  annual  income.  Many  shareholders  have 
been  more  than  compensated  for  their  subscrip- 
tions by  the  collateral  benefits  they  have  received 
from  the  canal. 

'The  Government  of  Germany  constructed  a 
canal  connecting  its  Baltic  and  North  Sea  ports, 
and  named  it  the  Kaiser- Wilhelm  Canal.  The 
natural  route  from  the  Baltic  to  the  North  Sea 
around  Denmark  is  circuitous,  dangerous  because 
of  storms,  and  is  guarded  by  foreign  powers.  The 
canal  was  begun  in  1887  and  completed  in  1895, 
and  was  constructed  primarily  for  military  and 
naval  purposes,  although  it  has  proved  to  be  of 
great  value  to  the  commerce  of  Germany.  It 
connects  Brunsbuttel  Harbor  on  the  Elbe  with 
Holtenau  on  Kiel  Bay.  It  passes  through  low 
lands  and  lakes  and  along  river  valleys.  It  is  61 
miles  long  and,  as  it  was  first  constructed,  had  a 
width  of  72  feet  and  a  depth  of  29|  feet.  The  total 
cost  of  the  canal  was  approximately  $37,000,000. 
It  was  in  operation  only  12  years  until  it  was 
found  ueceasary  to  enlarge  it*  The  reconstruction 


OTHER  GREAT  CANALS,  341 

of  the  canal  was  authorized  by  the  German  Govern- 
ment in  1907,  and  the  work,  which  is  expected  to 
be  completed  in  1914,  was  started  in  1909.  When 
this  work  is  completed  the  canal  will  be  144  feet 
wide  and  36  feet  deep.  At  10  places  it  will  be 
widened  so  as  to  permit  ships  to  pass.  New  twin 
locks,  built  for  the  regulation  of  the  tides  —  for  the 
canal  itself  is  at  sea  level  —  will  be  82  feet  longer 
and  37  feet  wider  than  the  Panama  locks.  The 
maximum  depth  of  these  locks  will  be  45  feet,  al- 
though at  low  tide  they  will  be  a  little  less  than  40 
feet. 

During  a  recent  year  commercial  vessels  with  an 
aggregate  net  register  of  over  7,000,000  tons  used 
the  Kiel  Canal.  The  increase  of  business  during 
the  first  decade  of  the  present  century  amounted  to 
70  per  cent,  or  a  little  more  than  the  estimated 
increase  for  each  decade  at  Panama.  The  net 
receipts  from  the  operation  of  the  canal  are  not 
sufficient  to  pay  interest  on  the  investment.  No 
effort  is  made  to  levy  tolls  that  will  provide  for 
interest  charges,  or  for  the  amortization  of  the 
principal.  The  canal  does  not  connect  regions  of 
enormous  traffic,  nor  does  it  greatly  shorten  ocean- 
routes.  The  longest  route  is  cut  down  only  429 
miles.  The  German  Empire  was  so  well  pleased 
with  the  success  of  the  Kaiser- Wilhelm  Canal  that 
the  enlargement  it  is  now  making  represents  an 
expenditure  one  and  a  half  times  the  original  cost. 

The  Amsterdam  Canal  was  built  to  connect 
Amsterdam  with  the  sea.  Formerly,  ocean-going 
vessels  were  small  and  the  Zuider  Zee  River  was 
then  a  stream  of  considerable  depth.  Gradually, 
however,  the  Zuider  Zee  became  shallower  and  the 


342  THE  PANAMA  CANAL 

size  of  ocean  vessels  larger,  so  that  the  commercial 
supremacy  of  Amsterdam  was  threatened  by  the 
competition  of  Rotterdam  and  Antwerp  and  north 
German  ports.  In  1818  a  corporation  constructed 
what  was  known  as  the  "North  Holland  Canal," 
which  was  large  enough  to  accommodate  ships 
employed  in  the  East  India  trade.  It  had  a 
minimum  depth  of  20  feet  and  a  minimum  width 
of  100  feet.  This  canal,  however,  had  numerous 
curves  and  it  was  constructed  by  a  roundabout 
route  of  52  miles  from  Amsterdam  northward  to 
the  North  Sea,  while  Amsterdam  is  less  than  17 
miles  from  the  sea  by  direct  route. 

In  1863  a  concession  for  the  construction  of  the 
North  Sea  Canal  was  granted  and  two  years  later 
active  work  began.  It  was  finished  in  1876. 
There  were  no  serious  engineering  difficulties  to  be 
met,  there  being  no  rivers  to  be  crossed,  no  towns 
to  block  the  way,  and  only  three  bridges  to 
be  built.  The  work  consisted  mainly  of  building 
embankments,  draining  and  reclaiming  land,  and 
dredging  the  channel.  The  canal  was  not  com- 
pleted according  to  the  original  plan.  Extensive 
enlargements  and  improvements  were  decided  on, 
and  a  larger  additional  lock  was  undertaken  in  1889 
and  completed  in  1896.  At  that  time  it  was  the 
largest  canal  lock  in  the  world.  Plans  are  now 
being  considered  for  building  another  new  lock, 
which  will  be  larger  than  those  at  Panama.  The 
bottom  width  of  the  canal  is  now  164  feet.  It  can 
accommodate  vessels  721  feet  long,  with  a  79-foot 
beam  and  of  30  feet  draft.  The  construction  of 
the  canal  cost  $16,000,000.  Improvements  have 
brought  the  total  amount  up  to  about  $24,000,000. 


OTHER  GREAT  CANALS  343 

Since  1893  all  toll  charges  have  been  eliminated, 
and  the  canal  has  been  operated  at  the  expense  of 
the  State.  The  annual  average  cost  of  operation 
and  maintenance  is  about  $200,000.  This  canal 
bears  about  the  same  relation  to  the  city  of  Am- 
sterdam that  the  Delaware  River  Channel  bears  to 
the  city  of  Philadelphia,  or  the  improvements  on 
the  lower  Mississippi  to  the  city  of  New  Orleans. 

The  Cronstadt  and  St.  Petersburg  Canal  is  16 
miles  long  and  gives  St.  Petersburg  an  outlet  to  the 
Gulf  of  Finland.  It  was  built  at  a  total  cost  of 
about  $10,000,000.  It  has  a  minimum  width  of 
220  feet  and  a  navigable  depth  of  about  20J  feet. 
It  was  built  primarily  as  a  military  undertaking, 
but  has  proved  of  great  service  to  Russian  com- 
merce. 

Another  important  European  canal  is  that  ex- 
tending from  the  Gulf  of  Corinth  to  the  Gulf  of 
Aegina  in  southern  Greece.  Its  length  is  about  4 
miles,  a  part  of  which  was  cut  through  soft  granite 
rock  and  the  remainder  through  soil.  It  has  no 
locks.  The  bottom  width  is  72  feet  and  the  depth 
26J  feet.  The  average  tolls  are  18  cents  per  ton 
and  20  cents  for  passengers. 

No  other  canal  in  the  world  can  rival  the  one  at 
Sault  Ste.  Marie,  Mich.,  which  connects  Lake 
Superior  with  Lake  Huron,  in  the  enormous  volume 
of  its  shipping.  There  are  really  two  canals  — 
one  owned  by  the  Canadian  Government,  and  one 
by  the  United  States  Government.  The  canal 
belonging  to  the  United  States  was  begun  in  1853 
by  the  State  of  Michigan,  and  opened  in  1855.  ^It 
had  a  length  of  about  a  mile  and  was  provided  with 
twin  locks  350  feet  long,  allowing  the  passage  of 


344 ;  THE  PANAMA  CANAL 

vessels  drawing  12  feet  of  water.  The  United 
States  Government,  by  consent  of  the  State  of 
Michigan,  began  in  1870  to  enlarge  the  canal,  and, 
by  1881,  had  increased  its  length  to  1.6  miles,  its 
width  to  an  average  of  160  feet  and  its  depth  to  16 
feet.  A  lock  515  feet  long,  80  feet  wide,  and  17 
feet  deep  was  located  south  of  the  locks  which  were 
built  by  the  State. 

In  1882  the  United  States  Government  took  over 
the  entire  control  of  the  canal.  Five  years  later 
the  locks  that  had  been  built  by  the  State  were 
torn  down,  and  a  new  one  800  feet  long,  100  feet 
wide,  and  22  feet  deep  was  put  into  commission  in 
1896.  The  Canadian  Canal,  1 J  miles  long,  150  feet 
wide,  and  22  feet  deep,  was  built  on  the  north  side 
of  the  river  during  the  years  1888  to  1895.  Its  locks 
are  900  feet  long,  60  feet  wide,  and  22  feet  deep. 

The  traffic  through  the  Sault  Ste.  Marie  Canals 
averages  around  60,000,000  tons  a  year.  This  is  as 
much  as  the  Panama  Canal  can  expect  to  get  40 
years  after  its  opening.  The  tonnage  of  the 
American  Soo  Canal  passed  the  million  mark  in 
1873,  reached  the  20,000,000  mark  in  1899,  and 
amounted  to  46,000,000  net  tons  in-1909.  It  now 
ranges  around  50,000,000  tons.  It  will  be  seen 
from  this  that  the  American  Canal,  built  on  the 
south  side  of  St.  Mary's  River,  gets  about  ten 
times  as  much  traffic  as  the  Canadian  Canal,  built 
on  the  north  side  of  the  river.  This  gives  the 
American  Soo  Canal  more  than  twice  as  much 
traffic  as  the  Suez  Canal,  and  about  four  times  as 
much  as  the  Panama  Canal  expects  to  begin  with. 

A  canal  which  was  built  primarily  for  drainage 
purposes,  but  which  seems  destined  to  fill  an  im- 


OTHER  GREAT  CANALS      345 

portant  place  as  a  traffic-carrying  waterway,  is  the 
Chicago  Drainage  Canal  connecting  Lake  Michi- 
gan at  Chicago  with  the  Illinois  River  at  Lockport 
— a  distance  of  34  miles.  It  was  built  for  the  pur- 
pose of  reversing  the  movement  of  water  in  the 
Chicago  River  and  preventing  the  pollution  of 
Lake  Michigan.  The  sewage  of  the  city  now  goes 
to  the  faraway  Mississippi  instead  of  the  Lakes. 
The  minimum  depth  of  the  canal  is  22  feet,  and  its 
bottom  width  160  feet.  To  complete  the  project 
the  excavation  of  nearly  44,000,000  yards  of  ma- 
terial was  required  —  enough,  if  deposited  hi  Lake 
Michigan  in  40  feet  of  water,  to  form  an  island  a 
mile  square  with  a  surface  12  feet  above  the  water. 
The  city  of  Chicago  and  the  State  of  Illinois  have 
agreed  to  turn  this  canal  over  to  the  United  States 
Government,  if  it  will  deepen  the  Illinois  and 
Mississippi  Rivers  to  14  feet  between  Lockport  and 
St.  Louis.  This  would  give  a  complete  water  con- 
nection from  upper  Mississippi  River  points  to 
Lake  Michigan,  and  open  up  a  highway  to  the  Gulf 
of  Mexico.  The  estimated  cost  of  this  project  is 
$25,000,000. 

The  completion  of  the  Panama  Canal  will 
probably  result  in  an  unprecedented  activity  in  the 
development  of  inland  waterways  in  the  United 
States.  The  new  markets  which  it  will  open  up  to 
American  products  and  the  old  markets  it  will 
stimulate  and  extend,  will  demand  large  additional 
facilities  for  getting  the  products  of  the  American 
farm  and  factory  to  the  seaboard.  Already  prep- 
arations for  capitalizing  the  commercial  oppor- 
tunities which  the  opening  of  the  canal  will  afford, 
are  being  made  in  various  parts  of  the  country. 


346  THE  PANAMA  CANAL 

The  Erie  Canal,  connecting  Buffalo  and  Albany 
and  giving  the  Great  Lakes  a  water  outlet  at  New 
York,  is  being  widened  and  deepened  at  an  expense 
of  $101,000,000.  The  propaganda  of  the  American 
Rivers  and  Harbors  Congress,  looking  to  the  appro- 
priation of  $500,000,000  to  be  spent  in  a  systematic 
program  of  inland  waterway  development,  is  meet- 
ing with  encouragement  in  every  part  of  the  coun- 
try, and  it  is  the  expectation  of  those  who  believe 
that  the  Government  should  commit  itself  to  such 
a  program,  that  within  25  years  the  stimulus  to 
waterway  development  given  by  the  opening  of  the 
Panama  Canal,  will  give  to  the  United  States  one 
of  the  finest  systems  of  inland  waterways  in  the 
world. 


CHAPTER  XXX 

A  NEW  COMMERCIAL  MAP 

THE  most  rapid  change  in  the  commercial 
map  of  the  world  wrought  in  centuries 
will  be  witnessed  during  the  years  fol- 
lowing the  completion  of  the  Panama  Canal. 
Cities  that  heretofore  have  been  mere  way  sta- 
tions on  the  international  routes  of  trade  will 
grow  into  rich  centers  where  the  new  roads  of 
the  commercial  world  will  cross.  On  the  other  hand, 
cities  which  in  the  past  have  gloried  in  a  trade 
supremacy  of  international  recognition  will  see 
themselves  displaced  and  their  prestige  lost. 
The  readjustment  will  not  be  the  matter  of  a  day 
or  a  year;  even  a  generation  may  pass  before 
it  is  completed;  but  the  ultimate  changes  will 
certainly  be  greater  and  more  world-encompass- 
ing than  anyone  now  can  forecast. 

The  capture  of  Constantinople  by  the  Turks 
was  directly  responsible  for  the  discovery  of  the 
New  World.  It  cut  off  the  cities  of  the  Mediter- 
ranean from  communication  with  India,  and  sent 
Columbus  westward  in  quest  of  another  passage, 
which  could  not  be  obstructed  by  the  Mussul- 
man tyrants  of  the  East.  At  last  the  Panama 
Canal  is  to  afford  that  passage,  and  to  bring  the 
whole  earth  into  smaller  compass. 

Of  course,  the  United  States  will  be  the  first 

347 


348  THE  PANAMA  CANAL 

to  realize  the  great  benefits  of  the  canal.  It  will 
double  the  efficiency  of  the  American  Navy  by 
permitting  it  to  concentrate  its  forces  on  either 
ocean  in  shorter  time,  by  weeks,  than  can  be 
done  by  any  other  nation;  consequently,  it  will 
add  to  American  military  prestige  throughout  the 
world.  The  benefits  immediately  accruing  to  the 
people  of  the  United  States  will  be  as  great  in  a 
commercial  way  as  in  military  advantage.  As 
the  capture  of  Constantinople  caused  the  up- 
building of  many  notable  regions  through  the 
transformation  of  international  trade  routes,  so 
will  the  completion  of  the  Panama  Canal  open 
up  new  markets  and  new  opportunities  to  the 
Mississippi  Valley,  the  world's  greatest  granary. 
Its  grain  and  meat  products,  loading  by  way 
of  Gulf  ports,  can  go  to  the  ends  of  the  earth  with 
but  little  outlay  for  expensive  rail  transportation. 
It  is  even  probable  that  the  great  awakening  inci- 
dent to  the  opening  of  the  canal,  may  hasten  the 
day  when  the  Lakes-to-the-Gulf  waterway  will  be 
an  accomplished  fact  and  when  ships  may  load  in 
Chicago,  Detroit,  Cleveland,  St.  Paul,  and  Minne- 
apolis and  sail  directly  to  the  ports  of  the  world, 
thus  beginning  an  era  of  commercial  development 
surpassing  even  the  wonderful  growth  of  the 
half  century  just  closed. 

Pittsburgh  may  then  be  able  to  send  its  tre- 
mendous output  of  manufactures  to  all  parts  of 
the  world  without  transhipment;  Kansas  City 
will  feel  the  stimulus  of  the  new  waterway;  and 
the  pacific  coast,  long  cut  off  from  the  eastern 
section  of  the  United  States  by  high  mountain 
barriers  that  have  been  only  partially  overcome 


A  NEW  COMMERCIAL  MAP  349 

by  railroads,  will  find  its  great  resources  within 
marketable  distance  of  the  Eastern  States. 

Canada,  too,  will  feel  the  stimulus  of  the  canal. 
No  longer  will  its  great  crops  have  to  find  their 
slow  outlet  over  railroads  that  must  cross  the 
backbone  of  a  continent,  but,  pursuing  the  avenues 
of  least  resistance,  they  may  move  to  all  parts  of 
the  world  by  way  of  the  Great  Lakes  and  the 
Mississippi  River. 

South  America  will  greatly  benefit  by  the 
completion  of  the  canal.  Already  its  west  coast 
countries  and  cities  are  getting  ready  for  the  boom 
of  business  that  is  to  follow.  Brought  thousands  of 
miles  nearer  to  all  western  trade  centers  —  so 
close  that  their  raw  products  and  American 
manufactured  products  can  be  exchanged  to 
advantage  —  there  will  be  a  growth  of  trade  whose 
prospect  already  has  awakened  the  lethargic  South 
American  to  the  possibilities  ahead. 

These  possibilities  well  may  be  considered  by 
the  business  men  of  the  United  States.  To-day 
North  America  buys  a  large  percentage  of  the 
products  of  South  America;  but,  when  the  South 
Americans  have  money  to  spare,  they  spend  only 
$1  out  of  $8  in  North  America  —  the  other  $7 
goes  to  Europe.  The  American  exporter  will  find 
himself  quickened  by  the  history-making  change 
the  canal  will  produce  and,  if  he  goes  at  it  in 
earnest,  he  will  be  in  a  position  to  reverse  the 
present  situation  and  get  $7  of  South  American 
trade  w^here  Europe  gets  only  $1. 

Australia  and  New  Zealand  will  experience, 
perhaps,  a  greater  change  in  the  trade  routes  than 
any  other  countries  outside  of  the  Americas. 


350  THE  PANAMA  CANAL 

The  Australian  commerce  now  is  largely  carried 
by  way  of  Suez.  The  opening  of  the  Panama 
Canal  will  place  New  Zealand  1,200  miles  nearer 
to  London  than  it  is  by  way  of  Suez,  and  the 
eastern  ports  of  Australia  will  be  as  near  to  England 
by  way  of  Panama  as  by  Suez.  All  Australasian 
ports  will  be  brought  several  thousand  miles 
closer  to  the  Atlantic  ports  of  the  United  States 
than  they  are  to-day.  No  one  who  has  heard  an 
Australasian  complain  of  the  long  delays  and 
the  excessive  freight  rates  that  intervene  between 
him  and  his  American  shoes,  can  doubt  that  the 
closer  proximity  of  American  markets  will  be 
welcomed  in  that  faraway  land  under  the  southern 
cross.  Sydney  will  be  4,000  miles  nearer  to 
New  York  through  the  Panama  Canal,  and  5,500 
miles  nearer  to  New  Orleans  and  Galveston. 

The  transcontinental  tonnage  now  handled 
by  the  railroads,  which  ultimately  will  go  by  the 
canal,  aggregates  3,000,000  tons  a  year.  The 
seaboard  sections  of  the  United  States,  of  course, 
will  benefit  more  largely  than  interior  points,  for 
the  reason  that  interior  points  will  have  to  take  a 
combined  rail-and-water  route.  This  will  involve 
railroad  transportation  and  transhipment  of  cargo, 
also  rehandling  charges.  After  the  canal  is  opened 
it  is  probable  that  the  railroads  will  prefer  to 
supply  the  intermountain  States  directly  from 
eastern  sources,  instead  of  maintaining  the  exist- 
ing policy  of  giving  low  rates  to  Pacific  coast 
cities,  so  as  to  give  them  dominance  over  the 
shipping  business  of  the  intermountain  region. 
The  total  coast-to-coast  traffic  of  the  railroads  is 
said  to  approximate  one-fifth  of  the  entire  traffic 


A  NEW  COMMERCIAL  MAP 


351 


carried  across  the  Rocky  Mountains.  Only  one- 
third  of  the  through  traffic  of  the  transcontinental 
lines  from  the  East  to  the  West  originates  east 
of  a  line  drawn  through  Buffalo  and  Pittsburgh. 
It  is  this  third  of  the  westward  business  that  will  be 
affected  mainly  by  the  operation  of  the  canal. 

The  principal  effect  the  Panama  Canal  will 
have  in  the  readjustment  of  the  trade  map  of  the 
world  is  not,  perhaps,  as  much  in  changing  exist- 


INTERNATIONAL  SHIPPING  ROUTES 

ing  routes  as  in  creating  new  avenues  of  business. 
In  every  region  where  there  is  promise  of  unusual 
benefit  by  reason  of  the  opening  of  the  Panama 
Canal,  an  effort  is  being  made  to  capitalize  the 
advantages  to  be  derived  therefrom.  The  west 
coast  of  South  America  feels  the  stimulus  of 
suddenly  being  brought  thousands  of  miles  closer 
to  the  best  markets  of  the  world,  and  anyone 
who  travels  down  the  coast  from  Panama  may  see 


352  THE  PANAMA  CANAL 

at  every  port  signs  of  a  determination  to  reap  full 
advantage  of  the  new  opportunities. 

Even  Guayaquil,  a  city  that  for  years  has  been 
a  hissing  and  a  byword  to  the  masters  of  all  ships 
plying  up  and  down  the  west  coast  because  of  its 
absolute  indifference  to  all  requirements  of  sanita- 
tion, has  prepared  for  a  campaign  of  cleaning-up, 
in  order  that  it  may  become  a  port  of  call  for  all 
the  ships  passing  that  way.  Heretofore,  masters 
of  ships,  in  order  to  comply  with  quarantine 
regulations  elsewhere,  have  given  it  a  wide  berth 
whenever  possible. 

Chile,  Peru,  and  Ecuador  —  all  three  have 
caught  the  spirit  of  the  new  era  which  a  completed 
canal  proclaims,  and  are  striving  to  set  their  houses 
in  order  for  the  quickened  times  they  see  ahead. 
With  the  Central  American  Republics  it  is  the 
same.  Handicapped  as  they  are  by  revolutions 
that  sap  their  life-blood,  or  dominated  by  rulers 
who  have  no  other  object  in  governing  the  people 
than  to  exploit  them,  these  countries  still  hope  for 
much  from  the  canal,  and  new  activities  are  be- 
ginning to  spring  up  in  every  one  of  them. 

It  is  not  improbable  that  the  canal  will  play 
an  important  part  in  transforming  the  economic 
situation  of  the  world  during  the  generations 
immediately  ahead  of  us.  One  needs  only  to  study 
the  distribution  of  humanity  over  the  countries 
of  the  earth  to  find  how  unevenly  the  population 
is  scattered,  and  to  learn  what  great  tides  of 
immigration  will  have  to  flow  westward  to  estab- 
lish the  equilibrium  of  population,  which  some 
day  is  bound  to  come.  When  Asia  has  a  population 
of  50  per  square  mile  and  Europe  a  population  of 


A  NEW  COMMERCIAL  MAP  853 

100  a  square  mile,  while  North  America  has 
15  and  South  America  has  7,  it  is  apparent  that 
the  future  holds  great  changes  in  store.  The 
potential  development  of  the  two  Americas 
challenges  the  imagination.  South  America,  with 
its  virgin  soil  all  but  untouched,  can  support  a 
population  half  as  dense  as  that  of  Europe. 
This  means  that  it  can  make  room  for  300,000,000 
immigrants.  Likewise,  it  is  fair  to  assume  that 
North  America,  with  its  up-to-date  methods  of 
agriculture,  industry,  and  commerce,  can  support 
a  population  as  dense  as  that  of  Asia  with  its 
primitive  methods  of  manufacture  and  agriculture. 
This  means  that  North  America  has  room  to 
accommodate  300,000,000  souls.  In  other  words, 
room  still  remains  for  600,000,000  persons  on  the 
continents  which  the  Panama  Canal  divides. 
When  the  day  comes,  as  it  seems  certain  that  it 
will,  that  the  Americas  reach  their  full  growth, 
even  the  Panama  Canal,  larger  by  far  than  any 
other  artificial  waterway  in  the  world,  will  be 
much  too  small  to  accommodate  the  traffic  which 
naturally  would  pass  its  way. 

The  foreign  trade  of  the  United  States  with  its 
90,000,000  of  population,  aggregates  60,000,000 
tons  a  year.  Assuming  that  foreign  trade  would 
grow  in  the  same  proportion  as  population,  it 
will  be  seen  that  the  foreign  trade  of  the  two 
Americas  at  a  time  when  the  population  of  South 
America  becomes  half  as  dense  as  that  of  Europe, 
and  that  of  North  America  half  as  dense  as  that 
of  Asia,  will  approximate  500,000,000  tons.  As- 
suming further  that  only  one-fifth  of  this  would 
pass  through  the  canal,  the  American  commerce 


354  THE  PANAMA  CANAL  f 

alone  would  exceed  its  capacity,  leaving  all  the 
trade  between  the  Orient  and  eastern  Europe  to  be 
taken  care  of  by  future  enlargements. 

More  immediate,  however,  will  be  the  realization 
of  the  prophecy  of  William  H.  Seward,  Lincoln's 
Secretary  of  State,  that  the  Pacific  is  destined 
to  become  the  chief  theater  of  the  world's  events. 
As  the  population  of  the  earth  stands  to-day,  more 
than  half  of  all  the  people  who  inhabit  the  globe 
dwell  on  lands  which  drain  into  this  greatest  of 
oceans.  Yet,  in  spite  of  that  fact,  the  trade  that 
sweeps  over  the  Pacific  is  but  small  in  comparison 
with  that  which  traverses  the  Atlantic.  Where 
a  thousand  funnels  darken  the  trade  routes  of 
the  Atlantic,  a  few  hundred  are  seen  on  the 
Pacific. 

But  in  Japan  one  may  find  an  example  of  the 
possibilities  of  the  Pacific  in  the  years  to  come. 
WThen  China,  with  its  400,000,000  people,  awakens 
as  Japan  has  awakened,  and  builds  up  an  inter- 
national trade  in  proportion  to  that  of  Japan,  it 
will  send  a  commerce  across  the  seas  unprecedented 
in  volume.  When  it  buys  and  sells  as  Japan  buys 
and  sells,  the  waters  of  the  Orient  will  vie  with 
those  of  the  Occident  in  the  size  of  their  fleets 
of  commerce. 

The  opening  of  the  Panama  Canal  promises  to  be 
one  of  the  factors  in  hastening  the  day  when  the 
Orient  will  become  as  progressive  as  the  Occident, 
and  when  sleeping  nations  will  arise  from  their 
lethargy  and  contribute  uncounted  millions  of 
tons  of  traffic  to  the  Pacific  Ocean,  making  it  a 
chief  theater  of  commerce  as  well  as  of  world 
events. 


A  NEW  COMMERCIAL  MAP  355 

In  our  own  country  the  course  of  empire  has 
been  sweeping  toward  the  Pacific.  Where  once 
the  center  of  most  things  lay  east  of  the  Mississippi 
River,  now  we  find  its  agriculture,  its  mining 
industries,  and  its  commercial  activities  gradually 
moving  westward.  The  center  of  cotton  produc- 
tion, once  in  those  States  celebrated  in  the  melodies 
of  the  Southern  plantation,  has  moved  westward 
and  to-day  in  Texas,  Oklahoma,  and  even  Southern 
California,  cotton  is  grown  in  a  way  which  shows 
that  King  Cotton  has  caught  the  spirit  of  the  age 
and  is  extending  his  territories  westward  toward 
the  Pacific.  And  all  of  this  means  a  growing  busi- 
ness and  an  expanding  traffic  through  the  Panama 
Canal. 

On  the  Atlantic  side  there  are  signs  without 
number  that  many  nations  will  be  up  and  doing 
in  the  reformation  of  the  commercial  map  of  the 
world.  The  islands  of  the  Caribbean  form  a  screen 
around  the  Atlantic  end  of  the  canal,  and  the 
majority  of  them  are  British  possessions.  Many 
of  their  cities  will  be  situated  upon  the  new  inter- 
national trade  routes  that  will  be  called  into  being 
by  the  opening  of  the  Panama  Canal.  At  King- 
ston, Jamaica,  great  improvements  are  projected, 
coaling  stations  are  planned,  and  other  steps  are 
being  taken  which  will  enable  the  British  Govern- 
ment to  reap  what  advantage  it  can  from  the  con- 
struction of  the  canal.  With  its  splendid 
diversity  of  climate,  brought  about  by  the  wide 
range  of  elevated  land,  the  fruits  of  the  temperate 
zones  may  be  grown,  as  well  as  those  of  the  Tropics, 
and,  as  John  Foster  Fraser  expresses  it,  Jamaica 
may  become  the  orchard  of  Great  Britain. 


356  THE  PANAMA  CANAL 

Denmark  is  planning  extensive  shipping  facili- 
ties in  its  beautiful  harbor  of  Charlotte  Amalia 
on  the  Island  of  St.  Thomas.  This  island,  which 
commands  one  of  the  principal  passages  from 
the  Atlantic  to  the  Caribbean  Sea,  might  to-day 
be  a  possession  of  the  United  States  had  this 
Government  been  willing  to  buy  it  when  Denmark 
was  anxious  to  sell.  It  was  here  that  the  bold 
pirates  of  the  Spanish  Main  hid  their  crews  in 
the  all  but  landlocked  harbor,  and  waited  for 
the  shipping  which  passed  through  Mona  passage. 
Here  Bluebeard's  castle  still  stands  a  mute  re- 
minder of  the  romantic  days  when  buccaneers 
dominated  the  Spanish  Main. 

The  north  coast  of  South  America  also  expects 
to  figure  largely  in  the  new  commercial  map. 
The  northern  cities  of  Venezuela  are  on  the  route 
from  eastern  South  America  through  the  canal, 
and  on  one  of  the  natural  routes  from  Pacific 
ports  to  Europe.  Nowhere  else  in  the  world  will 
one  find  a  more  delightful  climate  or  a  more 
picturesque  city  or  scenery  than  in  northern  Ven- 
ezuela. Caracas,  the  capital,  is  but  two  hours' 
ride  from  the  port  of  La  Guaira,  and  less  than 
a  day's  journey  from  Puerto  Cabello,  and,  while 
the  commerce  which  may  *be  developed  in  Ven- 
ezuela will,  for  the  most  part,  find  its  outlet 
to  the  sea  through  the  Orinoco  River,  La 
Guaira  and  Puerto  Cabello  will  always  prove 
attractive  ports  of  call  for  passenger-carrying 
ships. 

The  changes  in  the  commercial  situation  of  Asia 
and  the  Americas,  brought  about  by  the  opening 
of  the  canal,  will  be  many.  There  will  be  a  sudden 


A  NEW  COMMERCIAL  MAP  357 

readjustment  of  existing  trade  routes  and  this 
will  be  followed  by  a  long  era  of  development  of 
new  conditions,  which  will  be  so  gradual  as  to  be 
almost  imperceptible,  and  yet  so  immense  as  to 
excite  the  wonder  of  humanity  when  it  stops  to 
reckon  its  full  effect  and  meaning. 


CHAPTER  XXXI 

AMERICAN  TRADE  OPPORTUNITIES 

THE  great  development  of  the  southern 
part  of  the  New  World,  extending  from 
the  Rio  Grande  to  the  Strait  of  Magellan, 
certain  to  take  place  as  a  result  of  the  opening 
of  the  Panama  Canal,  spells  opportunity  for 
American  commerical  expansion.  This  vast  ter- 
ritory, covering  an  area  nearly  three  times  as  great 
as  that  of  the  United  States,  has  a,  population  of 
only  50,000,000.  Its  resources  have  been  merely 
scratched  on  the  surface.  Its  potentialities,  acre 
for  acre,  are  as  great  as  those  of  the  United  States. 
Porto  Rico  will  serve  for  a  criterion  by  which 
to  measure  the  future  possibilities  of  this  Empire 
of  the  South.  In  Porto  Rico  one  may  see  the 
benefits  of  the  institution  of  a  really  good  govern- 
ment, and  the  success  which  attends  a  proper  effort 
to  develop  natural  resources  in  tropical  America. 
If  American  opportunities  in  all  Latin  America 
may  be  measured  by  American  successes  in  that 
island,  then,  indeed,  the  future  is  rich  with  prom- 
ise. During  a  single  decade  the  external  com- 
merce of  this  little  gem  of  the  West  Indies  was 
more  than  quadrupled.  It  now  amounts  to  some 
$80,000,000  a  year,  and  only  about  12  other 
countries  in  the  world  buy  more  goods  from  the 
American  manufacturer. 

358 


AMERICAN  TRADE  OPPORTUNITIES  359 

The  expansion  of  internal  business  has  kept 
pace  with  the  growth  of  external  commerce.  In 
seven  years  taxable  values  increased  from  less 
than  $90,000,000  to  more  than  $160,000,000. 
In  a  single  year  the  amount  of  life  insurance  written 
in  the  island  nearly  doubled,  and  fire  insurance 
increased  nearly  half.  The  exportation  of  sugar 
increased  fivefold  in  10  years,  and  the  exportation 
of  cigars  14  times.  The  population  of  the  island 
has  increased  by  half  under  the  beneficient  policies 
of  the  United  States,  going  up  from  800,000  in 
1898  to  1,200,000  in  1912.  During  a  single  year 
Porto  Rico  buys  about  $35,000,000  worth  of  goods 
from  the  United  States,  and  ships  practically  the 
same  amount  to  this  country. 

Should  all  Latin  America  prove  as  good  a 
customer  in  proportion  to  area  as  Porto  Rico, 
our  trade  with  Latin  America  alone  would  be 
many  fold  greater  than  the  entire  foreign  trade 
of  the  United  States  to-day.  Should  all  Latin 
America,  even  with  its  present  population,  buy 
as  liberally  from  the  United  States  as  Porto  Rico 
does,  we  would  sell  annually  to  it  nearly  $2,000,- 
000,000  worth  of  products. 

The  most  necessary  step  in  developing  the 
potentialities  of  Latin  America  is  to  provide  good 
and  stable  government.  Commercial  statistics 
show  how  prosperity  flourishes  where  good  govern- 
ment reigns,  and  of  how  poverty  dwells  where 
misgovernment  exists.  One  may  go  to  Porto 
Rico,  to  Jamaica,  to  Curacao,  or  to  St.  Thomas,  and 
in  each  of  these  countries  may  behold  the  whole- 
some rule  of  northern  Europeans  and  their 
descendants.  The  people  have  at  least  those  sub- 


360  THE  PANAMA  CANAL 

stantial  rights  which  are  necessary  to  the  peace, 
happiness,  and  well-being  of  humanity;  and  equally 
without  exception  trade  statistics  show  a  greater 
foreign  trade,  in  proportion  to  area  and  population, 
than  is  enjoyed  in  any  country  where  misrule  pre- 
vails. Porto  Rico  could  be  buried  in  a  single  lake  of 
Nicaragua;  it  is  only  one-fifty-seventh  as  large  as 
Central  America;  and  yet  Porto  Rico  has  a  foreign 
trade  greater  than  all  the  territory  from  the  Isth- 
mus of  Tehuantepec  to  the  Isthmus  of  Panama. 

How  to  improve  governmental  conditions  in 
those  countries  where  misrule  prevails  is  a  most 
serious  problem.  Had  it  not  been  for  the  Monroe 
doctrine  it  is  safe  to  say  that  not  one  of  the  Re- 
publics of  tropical  America  would  be  in  existence 
today.  Instead,  their  territory  would  be  colonial 
possessions  of  the  several  powerful  nations,  and 
their  people  would  be  living  under  the  comparatively 
wholesome  rule  of  those  nations.  As  it  is,  in  a 
majority  of  the  Republics  south  of  the  Rio  Grande 
there  is  a  state  of  affairs  which  makes  against  the 
development  of  resources  and  the  best  interests 
of  the  people.  The  whole  theory  under  which  these 
countries  are  governed  is  that  primitive  one: 
"Let  him  take  who  has  the  power,  and  let  him 
keep  who  can."  The  result  is  that  they  are 
Republics  only  in  name,  and  that  the  only  way  to 
change  administrations  is  to  have  a  revolution. 
Revolutions  mean  poverty;  poverty  means  un- 
developed resources,  and  so  in  some  of  these 
countries  conditions  were  as  bad  in  1913,  after 
nearly  a  century  of  so-called  republican  rule,  as 
they  were  when  the  yoke  of  Spain  was  thrown  off 
in  1821.  How  to  bring  about  those  conditions 


AMERICAN  TRADE  OPPORTUNITIES  361 

of  peace  and  amity  essential  to  national  growth 
and  development  in  these  countries  is  the  problem 
that  has  vexed  more  than  one  administration  in 
Washington. 

Some  have  answered  that  the  best  way  to  do  it 
is  to  abrogate  the  Monroe  doctrine  and  to  let 
every  Latin  American  tub  stand  on  its  own  bottom, 
a  proposal  that  might  benefit  these  countries 
vastly,  but  which  contains  many  possibilities  of 
evil  to  the  United  States.  Others  have  suggested 
that  our  experiment  in  Porto  Rico  offers  the 
solution  of  the  problem,  at  least  so  far  as  tropical 
North  America  is  concerned.  They  assert  that 
the  end  would  justify  the  means,  and  that  the 
planning  of  the  same  character  of  government 
in  this  territory  that  exists  in  Porto  Rico  today, 
would  be  the  greatest  godsend  that  the  masses 
of  the  people  of  these  countries  could  have.  Still 
others  have  advocated  a  "hands-off"  policy  so 
far  as  the  rule  of  these  countries  is  concerned, 
allowing  them  to  fight  whenever,  and  in  whatever 
way,  they  wish,  but  at  the  same  time  adhering 
rigidly  to  the  Monroe  doctrine  against  European 
interference. 

Whatever  the  ultimate  conclusion,  it  seems  use- 
less to  hope  for  prosperity  and  expansion  in  coun- 
tries whose  industries  constantly  suffer  from  the 
galling  blight  of  ever-recurring  revolution.  The 
great  problem  that  lies  before  the  American  people, 
if  the  Latin  America  of  the  future  is  to  become 
like  the  Anglo-Saxon  America  of  today,  is  that 
of  devising  a  policy  which  will  insure  conditions 
of  peace  and  good  will  in  the  several  sword-ruled 
Countries  south  of  the  Rio  Grande. 


882  THE  PANAMA  CANAL 

I 

As  matters  stand  today  in  the  majority  of  the 
countries  of  Latin  America,  although  their  Govern- 
ments owe  their  very  existence  to  the  United 
States,  there  is  a  feeling  of  antipathy  against 
Americans,  which  places  the  American  exporter 
on  an  unequal  footing  with  his  European  rival. 
There  is  a  prejudice  against  Americans,  partly 
the  result  of  a  widespread  feeling  that  the  United 
States  is  the  great  land-grabber  of  the  Western 
world,  but  mostly  the  result  of  the  attitude  of  a 
large  number  of  Americans  who  go  into  these 
regions.  For  instance,  for  years  one  could  not  go 
about  the  streets  of  Mexico  City  without  hearing 
some  American  "berating  the  "blankety  blank 
greasers,"  and  asserting  that  the  United  States 
could  take  5,000  men  and  capture  Mexico  City 
in  a  two-month  campaign.  It  happens  that  the 
Mexican  is  a  proud  individual  and  naturally  he 
bitterly  resents  such  asseverations. 

The  same  is  true  elsewhere,  and  by  personal 
contact  prejudice  rather  than  a  feeling  of  friendship 
has  been  aroused.  The  European  usually  goes 
into  these  countries  because  there  are  few  op- 
portunities at  home.  He  is  usually  representative 
of  the  best  citizenship  of  his  homeland,  and  quite 
as  much  the  gentleman  in  Latin  America  as 
at  home.  While  there  are  a  great  many  splendid 
types  of  American  citizenship  scattered  throughout 
Latin  America,  a  greater  number  of  people  have 
gone  there  because  they  could  not  get  along  in 
the  United  States,  and  their  hostile  attitude 
toward  the  natives  excites  by  far  more  prejudice 
than  the  better  class  of  Americans  can  counteract 
by  sympathy  and  good  feeling.  Americans  who 


AMERICAN  TRADE  OPPORTUNITIES  363 

visit  these  countries  expressing  contempt  for 
everything  they  see,  and  everything  the  people 
do,  are  the  greatest  hindrances  to  the  realization 
of  the  commercial  opportunities  which  the  United 
States  possesses  in  Latin  America. 

If  the  manufacturers  of  the  United  States  are 
to  realize  to  the  full  the  benefits  which  may  be 
derived  from  the  opening  of  the  Panama  Canal 
they  will  have  to  reform  their  methods  of  dealing 
with  the  Latin  Americans.  It  is  just  as  effective 
to  send  to  buyers  at  home  catalogs  written  in 
Greek  or  Sanscrit  as  to  send  to  the  majority  of 
Latin  Americans  catalogs  printed  in  English. 
In  traveling  through  these  countries,  endeavoring 
to  ascertain  wherein  Americans  have  failed  in  their 
efforts  to  get  a  proper  share  of  their  foreign  trade, 
one  hears  on  every  hand  the  complaint  that  the 
American  manufacturer  seldom  meets  the  condi- 
tions upon  which  their  trade  may  be  based. 
No  satisfactory  credits  are  given,  and  no  effort 
is  made  to  manufacture  machinery  fitted  to  their 
peculiar  needs.  Agricultural  machinery,  for 
instance,  which  may  serve  admirably  in  the  United 
States,  is  wholly  out  of  place  in  many  of  these 
countries;  and  yet  the  Latin  American  customer 
must  either  buy  the  surplus  of  these  machines  or 
go  elsewhere  for  machinery  built  to  answer  his 
requirements. 

The  European  traveling  salesman  in  these 
countries  carries  a  line  of  goods  immediately 
answerable  to  local  requirements.  Furthermore, 
the  European  exporter  understands  that  the 
system  of  credits  in  Latin  America  is  not  the  same 
as  prevails  in  Europe  and  the  United  States, 


564  THE  PANAMA  CANAL 

and  he  complies  with  their  requirements.  Of 
course,  his  prices  are  placed  high  enough  so  that 
he  is  nothing  out  of  pocket  for  the  seeming  con- 
cessions he  had  made.  The  result  is  that  in 
traveling  in  these  countries,  one  meets  three  or 
four  foreign  "drummers"  where  he  meets  one 
American  traveling  man,  in  spite  of  their  nearness 
to  the  United  States.  It  will  take  years,  even 
with  the  Panama  Canal  in  operation,  to  overcome 
the  disadvantage  which  bad  business  policy  has 
placed  upon  the  American  manufacturers. 

If  the  opening  of  the  Panama  Canal  spells 
new  American  commercial  opportunities,  it  also 
develops  a  new  field  of  international  politics 
in  which  the  United  States  must  make  itself  the 
dominant  factor,  and  in  which  it  will  have  a 
transcendental  interest.  It  will  unquestionably 
give  to  the  Monroe  doctrine  a  new  importance 
and  render  its  maintenance  a  more  urgent  neces- 
sity than  ever.  Prior  to  this  time  the  breaking 
down  of  the  Monroe  doctrine  would  have  been 
greatly  detrimental  to  the  interests  of  the  United 
States,  but  from  this  time  forth  the  domination 
of  the  Caribbean  by  some  other  strong  nation 
would  likely  prove  most  disastrous  to  American 
welfare.  It  might  even  lead  to  the  loss  of  the 
canal  itself,  and  we  then  would  witness  that  great 
waterway  transformed  from  a  military  asset  of 
immeasureable  benefit  into  a  base  of  operations 
against  us. 

Probably  the  chief  danger  to  which  the  Monroe 
doctrine  is  exposed  is  from  those  countries  whose 
rulers  profit  most  by  its  enforcement.  While 
the  United  States  can  control  its  own  affairs  in 


AMERICAN  TRADE  OPPORTUNITIES  365 

such  a  way  as  not  to  bring  into  question  this 
doctrine,  it  is  not  so  certain  that  the  rulers  of  some 
of  the  Latin  American  nations  will  always  do  as 
well.  In  fact,  some  of  the  countries  have  con- 
ducted their  affairs  in  such  a  way  as  might  have 
involved  the  United  States  in  a  war  with  a  foreign 
power.  The  knowledge  that  a  small  tropical 
American  republic  might  act  so  as  to  force  the 
United  States  into  a  critical  situation  has  resulted 
in  a  desire  on  the  part  of  the  responsible  authorities 
at  Washington  to  exercise  over  the  Republics 
of  the  Caribbean  such  a  guiding  control  as  would 
serve  to  prevent  them,  through  any  ill-considered 
or  irresponsible  act,  from  exposing  the  United 
States  to  dangerous  controversies  with  foreign 
nations. 

For  instance,  here  is  a  country  which  owes  a 
large  debt  to  British  bondholders.  It  defaults 
on  the  interest  for  a  period  of  years.  Efforts 
to  collect  are  futile.  Finally  it  is  decided  by 
the  President  that  he  needs  additional  funds. 
He  reaches  an  agreement  with  the  representatives 
of  the  bondholders,  by  which  they  agree  to  refund 
the  debt  and  to  lend  him  an  additional  half  a 
million  dollars,  upon  the  condition  that  he  hypothe- 
cate the  Government's  export  tax  upon  coffee  to 
secure  the  amortization  of  the  refunded  debt. 
He  does  so.  Matters  move  along  quietly  for  a 
little  while,  but  soon  he  needs  additional  funds. 
He  negotiates  with  New  York  bankers,  getting 
from  them  the  funds  he  needs,  and  hypothecates 
with  them  the  same  coffee  tax  that  he  had  hitherto 
lypothecated  with  the  British  bondholders.  Of 
course,  the  British  bondholders  protest  at  this 


866  THE  PANAMA  CANAL 

impairment  of  their  securities.  He  laughs  at 
their  protest.  England  sends  a  warship  to  his 
ports.  He  appeals  loudly  to  the  United  States 
for  the  maintenance  of  the  Monroe  doctrine;  but 
the  United  States  does  not  hear  him,  so  he  decides 
to  treat  the  British  bondholders  fairly.  If  he 
had  not  done  so,  and  England  had  been  seeking 
to  break  down  the  Monroe  doctrine,  an  ideal  op- 
portunity would  have  been  afforded. 

It  is  to  prevent  such  situations  as  these  that 
many  Americans  hope  that  the  Government  may 
devise  some  plan  that  will  at  once  protect  the 
United  States  from  such  menaces,  and  at  the  same 
time  allow  the  people  of  these  countries  to  work 
out  their  own  destiny  in  their  own  way. 

The  situation  in  tropical  America  today,  with 
a  few  exceptions,  seems  to  be  that  the  republics 
have  the  form  of  liberty  without  its  substance, 
and  the  shadow  of  civilization  without  its  realities. 
Some  of  them  have  had  over  fifty  revolutions  in 
as  many  years.  Some  of  them  have  been  in  the 
grip  of  tyrants  who  were  as  heartless  in  exploiting 
their  people  as  was  Nero  in  ruling  Rome.  The 
masses  have  received  nothing  from  the  Government 
except  oppression,  and  they  live  in  that  hopeless, 
heartless  ignorance  so  well  described  by  a  Spanish 
writer,  picturing  conditions  in  Porto  Rico  before 
the  American  occupation.  We  know  that  this 
picture  was  a  true  one.  It  was  drawn  in  1897 
and  won  the  prize  awarded  by  the  Spanish  Govern- 
ment at  the  centennial  celebration  of  the  retire- 
ment of  the  English  from  this  island.  After  dilating 
upon  the  splendors  and  magnificence  of  Porto 
Rico,  this  artist  of  the  pen  said  of  the  masses: 


AMERICAN  TRADE  OPPORTUNITIES    367 

"Only  the  laborer,  the  son  of  our  fields,  one 
of  the  most  unfortunate  beings  in  the  world,  with 
the  pallid  face,  the  bare  foot,  the  fleshless  body, 
the  ragged  clothing,  and  the  feverish  glance, 
strolls  indifferently  with  the  darkness  of  ignorance 
in  his  eyes.  In  the  market  he  finds  for  food  only 
the  rotten  salt  fish  or  meat,  cod  fish  covered  with 
gangrenish  splotches,  and  Indian  rice;  he  that 
harvests  the  best  coffee  in  the  world,  who  aids  in 
gathering  into  the  granary  the  sweetest  grain  in 
nature,  and  drives  to  pasture  the  beautiful  young 
meat  animals,  can  not  carry  to  his  lips  a  single 
slice  of  meat  because  the  municipal  exactions  place 
it  beyond  his  means,  almost  doubling  the  price 
of  infected  cod  fish;  coffee  becomes  to  him  an 
article  of  luxury  because  of  its  high  price,  and  he 
can  use  only  sugar  laden  with  molasses  and  im- 
purities." 

That  picture  applies  to  more  than  90  per  cent 
of  the  people  in  tropical  America  to  day.  It 
explains  why  these  countries,  which  might  be  made 
to  flow  with  the  milk  and  honey  of  a  wondrous 
plenty,  are  poverty-stricken  and  unable  to  work 
out  a  satisfactory  destiny  for  themselves.  It 
shows  why  Cuba,  Porto  Rico,  and  Jamaica  to-day 
are  rich  in  internal  trade,  and  prosperous  in 
foreign  commerce,  while  other  countries  are  eking 
out  a  bare  and  scanty  existence. 

American  commercial  opportunities  around  the 
Mediterranean  of  the  West,  in  particular,  and  in 
Latin  America,  in  general,  will  reach  their  full  when 
government  there  becomes  government  for  the 
welfare  of  the  people  rather  than  for  the  aggran- 
dizement of  the  ruling  class. 


CHAPTER  XXXII 

THE  PANAMA-PACIFIC   EXPOSITION 

WHEN,  on  February  20,  1915,  the  Panama- 
Pacific  International  Exposition  opens  its 
gates  to  the  world,  in  celebration  of  the 
completion  of  the  Panama  Canal,  it  expects  to 
offer  to  the  nations  of  the  earth  a  spectacle  the 
like  of  which  has  never  been  equaled  in  the  history 
of  expositions.  It  is  estimated  that  $50,000,000 
will  be  spent  in  thus  celebrating  the  great  triumph 
of  American  genius  at  Panama.  And  those  who 
know  the  spirit  of  the  people  of  California,  who 
are  immediately  responsible  to  the  United  States 
and  to  the  world  for  the  success  of  the  under- 
taking, understand  that  nothing  will  be  over- 
looked that  might  please  the  eye,  stir  the  fancy, 
or  arouse  the  patriotism  of  those  who  journey 
to  the  Golden  Gate  to  behold  the  wonders  of 
this  great  show. 

The  spirit  that  was  San  Francisco's  following 
the  terrible  calamity  of  April  18,  1906,  when  the 
city  was  shaken  to  its  foundations  by  a  great 
earthquake,  and  when  uncontrollable  fire  com- 
pleted the  ruin  and  devastation  which  the  earth- 
quake had  begun,  has  been  the  spirit  that  has 
planned  and  is  carrying  to  a  successful  culmina- 
tion the  Panama-Pacific  Exposition.  The  San 
Francisco  earthquake  came  as  the  most  terrific 


PANAMA -PACIFIC  EXPOSITION       369 

blow  that  ever  descended  upon  an  American 
city.  It  left  the  metropolis  of  the  Pacific  a  mass 
of  ruins  and  ashes.  In  five  years  a  newer  and  a 
prouder  San  Francisco  arose  from  the  ashes  of 
the  old,  and  greeted  the  world  as  the  highest 
example  of  municipal  greatness  to  which  a  com- 
munity can  rise  at  times  when  nothing  is  left  to 
man  but  hope,  and  that  hope  is  half  despair. 

The  fire  destroyed  8,000  houses,  leaving  such 
a  hopeless  mass  of  debris  that  $20,000,000  had  to 
be  raised  to  reclaim  the  bare  earth  itself.  In 
five  years  31,000  finer  and  better  houses  had  taken 
their  places.  Assessed  values  before  the  fire  were 
$30,000,000  less  than  five  years  after.  Bank 
clearings  increased  by  a  third  and  savings-bank 
deposits  were  greater  after  only  five  years  than 
they  were  before  the  terrible  catastrophe. 

It  may  be  imagined  what  wonders  this  spirit 
of  the  Golden  West  will  accomplish  when  applied 
to  the  creation  of  an  exposition.  It  is  easy  to 
forecast  that,  beautiful  as  have  been  the  exposi- 
tions of  the  past,  and  magnificent  as  has  been  the 
scale  upon  which  they  were  planned,  fresh  palms 
will  be  awarded  to  San  Francisco  and  the  great 
fair  it  will  offer  to  the  world  in  1915. 

The  city  of  the  Golden  Gate  was  planning  a 
great  celebration  nearly  two  years  before  the 
calamity  which  overtook  it  in  1906.  The  first 
suggestion  for  holding  a  world's  fair  at  San  Fran- 
cisco was  made  on  June  12,  1904,  when  Mr.  R.  B. 
Hale  wrote  a  letter  to  the  San  Francisco  Mer- 
chants' Association  advising  its  members  that  it 
would  be  wise  to  take  steps  toward  securing  for 
that  city  a  great  celebration_of  the  400th  anni- 


870  THE  PANAMA  CANAL 

»  \ 

versary  of  the  discovery  of  the  Pacific  Ocean,  in 
1913.  The  matter  was  agitated  for  a  year  and  a 
half  and,  a  little  more  than  three  months  prior  to 
the  earthquake,  Representative  Julius  Kahn  in- 
troduced in  the  National  House  of  Representa- 
tives a  bill  providing  for  the  celebration  of  the 
discovery  of  the  Pacific,  in  1913.  Then  followed 
the  great  catastrophe,  and  for  the  eight  months 
next  ensuing  the  problems  of  planning  a  new  and 
greater  San  Francisco  demanded  all  the  atten- 
tion of  the  people  of  that  city.  In  December, 
1906,  however,  the  Pacific  Ocean  Exposition  Com- 
pany was  incorporated  with  a  capital  stock  of 
$5,000,000. 

By  1910  New  Orleans  had  loomed  up  as  an 
aspirant  for  the  honor  of  holding  the  great  in- 
ternational celebration  of  the  completion  of  the 
Panama  Canal,  and  San  Francisco  understood 
that  time  for  action  was  at  hand,  and,  moreover, 
that  money  raised  at  home  for  the  exposition 
would  be  the  most  eloquent  advocate  before 
Congress.  Realizing  this,  a  great  mass  meeting 
was  called  and  in  two  hours  subscriptions  amount- 
ing to  $4,089,000  were  raised,  headed  by  40  sub- 
scriptions of  $25,000  each. 

In  the  fall  of  that  year  San  Francisco  was  af- 
forded an  opportunity  of  attesting  the  universality 
of  its  interest  in  the  success  of  the  exposition. 
A  proposition  to  vote  $5,000,000  worth  of  bonds 
for  the  exposition  was  referred  to  the  people.  It 
carried  by  a  vote  of  42,040  to  2,122.  The  State1 
of  California  also  gave  its  citizens  an  opportunity 
to  show  their  feeling,  and  by  a  vote  of  174,000  to 
fiO,000  made  available  bonds  for  $5,000,000  for 


PANAMA -PACIFIC  EXPOSITION       371 

the  purposes  of  the  exposition.  The  result  has 
been  that  from  first  to  last,  within  the  confines 
of  California's  borders,  a  sum  approximating  $20,- 
000,000  has  been  raised  for  exposition  pur- 
poses. To  this,  $30,000,000  will  be  added  by 
outside  governments  and  by  exhibitors  and  con- 
cessionaires. 

The  fight  which  led  to  the  choosing  of  San 
Francisco  as  the  city  for  holding  the  Panama 
celebration  is,  for  the  most  part,  familiar  history. 
The  law  under  which  this  choice  was  made  was 
signed  by  President  Taft  on  February  15,  1911. 
The  presidential  signature  was  the  signal  for  the 
beginning  of  operations  looking  to  the  comple- 
tion of  all  of  the  exposition  buildings  a  full  six 
months  ahead  of  the  opening  date.  The  details 
of  the  site  were  worked  out  promptly.  The  site 
selected  includes  the  western  half  of  Golden  Gate 
Park;  Lincoln  Park,  which  is  situated  on  a  high 
bluff  overlooking  the  approach  from  the  Pacific 
Ocean  and  the  Golden  Gate;  and  Harbor  View, 
which  is  an  extensive  tract  of  level  land,  stretch- 
ing along  the  shore  of  San  Francisco  Bay  and 
back  to  the  hills  and  the  principal  residential 
portion  of  the  city. 

Each  element  in  this  extensive  site  possesses 
its  own  peculiar  charm;  Golden  Gate  Park  with 
its  great  variety  of  flowers  and  semitropical 
plants  and  trees;  Lincoln  Park  with  its  outlook 
on  the  broad  Pacific  and  along  the  rugged  coast- 
line to  the  north;  and  Harbor  View  with  the 
Golden  Gate  to  the  left,  a  chain  of  climbing  hills 
across  the  harbor  in  front,  and  the  long  sweep  of 
bay  and  islands  to  the  right.  What  nature  has 


372  THE  PANAMA  CANAL 

not  done  for  the  site  of  the  exposition  will  be 
done  by  the  art  of  the  landscape  gardener. 

An  ocean  boulevard,  to  be  made  one  of  the 
most  beautiful  drives  in  the  world,  will  become 
one  of  the  permanent  memorials  of  the  exposi- 
tion. A  great  esplanade,  planted  with  cypress 
and  eucalypti  and  liberally  provided  with  seats, 
will  extend  along  the  water's  edge  for  about  half 
the  entire  length  of  the  exposition  grounds, 
affording  ample  opportunity  for  the  thousands 
of  visitors  to  watch  the  great  water  events  which 
will  constitute  one  of  the  features  of  the  exposi- 
tion. On  the  south  side  of  this  esplanade  the 
principal  exposition  buildings,  consisting  of  eight 
great  palaces,  will  be  located.  A  great  wall,  60 
feet  high,  will  be  built  along  the  northern  and 
western  waterfronts  for  the  purpose  of  break- 
ing the  winds  which  sweep  down  the  harbor,  and 
will  be  continued  around  the  other  two  sides  of 
the  exposition  grounds  proper  so  as  to  constitute 
a  walled  inclosure  which,  in  appearance,  will  re- 
mind one  of  the  old  walled  towns  of  southern 
France  and  Spain. 

The  two  principal  gateways  to  the  exposition 
grounds  will  open  into  great  interior  courts, 
around  which  the  buildings  will  be  ranged.  It 
will  be  possible  for  the  visitor  to  go  from  one 
building  to  another  and  complete  the  entire  cir- 
cuit of  eight  main  exhibition  palaces  without 
once  stepping  from  under  cover.  The  three 
largest  courts  are  named:  The  Court  of  the  Sun 
and  Stars,  the  Court  of  Abundance,  and  the 
Court  of  the  Four  Seasons.  The  Court  of  Abund- 
ance represents  the  Orient,  and  the  Court  of  the 


PANAMA -PACIFIC  EXPOSITION       373 

Four  Seasons,  the  Occident;  the  Court  of  the  Sun 
and  Stars,  uniting  the  other  two,  will  typify  the 
linking  of  the  Orient  and  the  Occident  through 
the  completion  of  the  Panama  Canal.  There 
will  also  be  two  lesser  courts,  known  as  the  Court 
of  Flowers  and  the  Court  of  Palms.  Outside 
of  the  walled  city  there  will  be  five  other  import- 
ant exhibition  palaces. 

The  Panama-Pacific  Exposition  will  be  differ- 
ent from  any  that  has  gone  before.  Where  others 
have  been  built  on  broad,  level  plains,  this  one 
will  be  located  in  one  of  nature's  most  beautiful 
natural  amphitheaters,  with  the  residential  por- 
tions of  San  Francisco  and  the  towns  of  the  sur- 
rounding country  looking  down  upon  it.  The 
architecture  will  be  of  such  a  nature  that  will 
make  the  "Fair  City"  indeed  a  fair  city  to 
behold. 

If  Chicago  had  its  "White  City,"  the  San  Fran- 
cisco fair  will  be  all  aglow  with  rich  color.  It 
will  be  made  to  harmonize  with  the  "vibrant 
tints  of  the  native  wild  flowers,  the  soft  browns 
of  the  surrounding  hills,  the  gold  of  the  oranger- 
ies, the  blue  of  the  sea."  The  artist  in  charge  of 
this  phase  of  the  work  declares  that,  "as  the 
musician  builds  his  symphony  around  a  motif  or 
chord,"  so  it  became  his  duty  to  "strike  a  chord 
of  color  and  build  his  symphony  upon  it."  The 
one  thing  upon  which  he  insisted  was  that  there 
should  be  no  white,  and  the  pillars,  statues, 
fountains,  masts,  walls,  and  flagpoles  that  are 
to  contrast  with  the  tinted  decorations  are  to  be 
of  ivory  yellow.  Even  the  dyeing  of  the  bunting 
for  flags  and  draperies  is  under  the  personal 


874  THE  PANAMA  CANAL 

j 

supervision  of  the  artist  in  charge  of  the  color 
scheme  of  the  exposition.  The  roofs  of  the  build- 
ings will  be  harmoniously  colored  and  the  city 
will  be  a  great  party-colored  area  of  red  tiles, 
golden  domes,  and  copper-green  minarets.  "Im- 
agine," said  Jules  Guerin,  the  artist,  "a  gigantic 
Persian  rug  of  soft  melting  tones  with  brilliant 
splotches  here  and  there,  spread  down  for  a  mile 
or  more,  and  you  may  get  some  idea  of  what  the 
Panama-Pacific  Exposition  will  look  like  when 
viewed  from  a  distance." 

The  lighting  of  the  exposition  will  be  by  indi- 
rect illumination,  affording  practically  the  same 
intensity  of  light  by  night  as  by  day.  Lights 
will  be  hidden  behind  the  colonnades,  above  the 
cornices,  and  behind  masts  on  the  roofs.  Sculp- 
ture will  stand  out  without  shadow  at  night  as  by 
day.  Great  searchlights,  many  of  them  con- 
centrated upon  jets  of  steam,  and  playing  in 
varying  color,  will  add  to  the  beauty  of  the  scene. 
Even  the  fogs  of  the  harbor  will  be  made  to  con- 
tribute to  the  night  effect  of  the  exposition,  and 
auroras  will  spread  like  draped  lilies  in  the  sky 
over  the  exhibition. 

The  sculpture  will  be  unique  in  the  history  of 
exposition-giving.  That  phase  of  the  work  is 
under  the  control  of  Karl  Bitter.  In  front  of 
the  main  entrance,  at  the  tower  gate,  there  will 
be  an  allegory  of  the  Panama  Canal  called 
"Energy;  the  lord  of  the  Isthmian  way."  It 
will  be  represented  by  an  enormous  horse  stand- 
ing on  a  heavy  pedestal,  the  horse  carrying  a  man 
with  extended  arms  pushing  the  waters  apart.  In 
the  Court  of  the  Sun  and  Stars  two  great  sculp- 


PANAMA -PACIFIC  EXPOSITION        375 

tural  fountains,  typical  of  the  rising  and  setting 
of  the  sun,  will  carry  out  the  idea  of  "the  world 
united  and  the  land  divided."  In  every  part  of 
the  exposition  scheme  the  sculpture  will  tell  the 
story  of  the  unification  of  the  nations  of  the 
East  and  the  West  through  the  construction  of 
the  Panama  Canal. 

Nothing  seems  to  have  been  overlooked  in  the 
plans  that  have  been  made  to  celebrate  the  open- 
ing of  the  Panama  Canal  at  San  Francisco.  There 
will  be  a  working  model  of  the  Panama  Canal, 
with  a  capacity  of  handling  2,000  people  every 
20  minutes.  A  reproduction  of  the  Grand  Canyon 
of  Arizona  will  be  another  feature.  The  liber- 
ality of  the  prizes  offered  is  indicated  by  the  fact 
that  premiums  in  the  live-stock  exhibits  alone 
aggregate  $175,000. 

One  of  the  greatest  events  of  the  exposition 
wrill  be  the  rendezvous  of  representative  ships 
from  the  fleets  of  all  the  nations  of  the  earth  in 
Hampton  Roads  in  January  and  February,  1915. 
Their  commanders  will  visit  Washington  and  be 
received  by  the  President.  He  will  return  with 
them  to  Hampton  Roads  and  there  review  what 
promises  to  be  the  greatest  international  naval 
display  in  history.  After  this  a  long  procession 
of  fighting  craft,  perhaps  accompanied  by  an 
equally  long  procession  of  tourist  steamers,  pri- 
vate yachts,  and  ships  of  commerce,  will  steam 
out  of  the  Virginia  Capes  and  turn  their  prows 
down  the  Spanish  Main  to  Colon.  Here  the 
canal  authorities  will  formally  welcome  the  ship- 
ping world  and  pass  its  representatives  through 
to  the  Pacific,  whence  they  will  sail  to  San  Fran- 


376  THE  PANAMA  CANAL 

Cisco,  there  to  participate  in  the  great  celebration 
during  the  months  which  will  follow.  It  may  be 
that  this  great  procession  will  be  headed  by  the 
U.  S.  S.  Oregon,  whose  trip  around  South  Amer- 
ica in  1898  proclaimed  in  tones  that  were  heard  in 
every  hamlet  in  the  United  States  the  necessity 
of  building  the  great  waterway. 

In  addition  to  the  great  exposition  at  San 
Francisco,  another  will  throw  open  its  gates  dur- 
ing 1915  —  the  Panama-California  Exposition  at 
San  Diego.  This  exposition  will  be  held  at  a 
total  outlay  of,  perhaps,  $20,000,000.  Nearly 
$6,000,000  is  being  spent  on  a  magnificent  sea 
wall.  The  San  Diego  and  Arizona  Railway  is 
being  built  on  a  new  and  lower  grade  for  nearly 
220  miles.  About  $5,000,000  will  be  spent  in 
making  the  exposition  proper  in  Balboa  Park. 
Over  11  miles  of  docks  and  a  thousand  acres  of 
reclaimed  land  for  warehouses  and  factory  sites 
will  be  ready  when  the  exposition  opens  on  Jan- 
uary 1,  1915.  The  fair  will  have  30  acres  of 
Spanish  gardens.  A  great  Indian  congress  and 
exhibit  will  be  held,  representing  every  tribe  of 
North  and  South  America.  -This  exposition  will 
in  nowise  interfere  with  the  big  show  at  San 
Francisco,  but  will  be  supplemental  to  it. 

When  the  Suez  Canal  was  finished,  its  opening 
was  celebrated  by  the  most  magnificent  fete  of 
modern  times,  the  profligate  Khedive  Ismail 
Pasha  apparently  endeavoring  to  outdo  the  tra- 
ditions of  his  Mussulman  predecessors,  Haroun 
al  Raschid  and  Akbar.  The  fete  lasted  for  four 
weeks,  Cairo  was  decorated  and  illuminated  as 
no  city,  of  either  Occident  or  Orient,  ever  had 


PANAMA -PACIFIC  EXPOSITION       377 

been  before.  The  expense  of  the  month's  car- 
nival was  more  than  $21,000,000. 

An  opera  house  was  built  especially  for  the 
occasion,  and  Verdi,  the  famous  Italian  composer, 
was  employed  to  write  a  special  opera  for  the 
occasion.  That  the  opera  was  "Aida,"  and  that 
it  marked  the  high  tide  of  Verdi's  genius,  was 
perhaps  more  than  might  have  been  expected  of 
a  work  of  art  produced  at  the  command  of  an  ex- 
travagant prince's  gold. 

The  canal  itself  was  opened  on  November  16, 
1869,  a  procession  of  forty-eight  ships,  men  of 
war,  royal  yachts  and  merchantmen,  making 
the  transit  of  the  Isthmus  in  three  days'  time. 
In  the  first  ship  was  Eugenie,  Empress  of  the 
French.  In  another  was  the  Emperor  of  Austria, 
and  in  still  another  the  Prince  of  Wales,  after- 
wards Edward  VII.  A  more  imposing  gathering 
of  imperial  and  royal  personages  never  before 
had  been  witnessed,  and  all  of  them  were  the 
Christian  guests  of  the  Moslem  Ismail. 

When  the  procession  of  royal  vessels  had 
passed  through,  the  captains  and  the  kings  went  to 
Cairo  for  the  fete.  The  canal  was  open  for  traffic. 
It  was  significant  that  the  first  vessel  to  pass 
through  in  the  course  of  ordinary  business,  paying 
its  tolls,  flew  the  British  ensign.  The  building 
of  the  canal  had  wrecked  Egypt,  financially  and 
politically;  was  destined  to  end  forever  the  hope 
of  Asiatic  empire  for  France;  and  was  to  make 
certain  England's  dominion  over  India,  a  thing 
de  Lesseps  and  Napoleon  III  had  intended  it 
to  destroy. 

The  celebration  of  the  completion  of  the  Suez 


378  THE  PANAMA  CANAL 

Canal  was  the  wildest  orgy  of  modern  times,  the 
last  attempt  to  Orientalize  a  commercial  under- 
taking of  the  Age  of  Steam  and  Steel. 

The  celebration  at  San  Francisco  will  be  more 
magnificent  in  its  way,  and  will  cost  more  money. 
But  the  millions  will  not  be  thrown  away  for 
the  mere  delectation  of  the  senses  of  two  score 
princes  —  they  will  be  expended  for  the  enter- 
tainment and  the  education  of  millions  of  people, 
the  humblest  of  whom  will  have  his  full  share 
in  the  celebration. 

From  the  spruce  woods  of  Maine,  from  the 
orange  groves  of  Florida,  from  the  wide  fields 
of  the  Mississippi  Valley,  from  the  broad  plains 
of  the  Colorado,  from  the  blue  ridges  of  the  Alle- 
ghenies  and  the  snow  peaks  of  the  Rockies, 
Americans  will  go  to  the  Golden  Gate  to  com- 
memorate in  their  American  way  the  closer 
union  of  their  States,  the  consummation  of  the 
journeys  of  Columbus:  The  Land  Divided  — 
the  World  United. 


THE   END 


A  MAP  SHOWING  THE  ISTHMUS  WITH  THE  COMPLETED  CANAL 


INDEX 


Accessory  Transit  Company,  199 

Accidents,  72 

Amador,  Dr.,  238,  239 

Accounting  department,  315 

American  Federation  of  Labor,  271 

American  clings  to  home  habits,  177 

American  Federation  of  Women's 
Clubs,  176,  180 

American  mind  wanted  canal,  11 

American  Rivers  and  Harbors  Con- 
gress, 346 

Amsterdam  Canal,  341-342 

Amundsen,  4 

Amusements,  178,  188,  189,  190,  191, 
192 

Ancon  Hill,  89 

Ancon  Study  Club,  183 

Animal  life,  331 

Ants,  331 

Appropriations  for  canal,  269 

Aspinwall,  William  H.,  102 

Babel  of  American  ambitions,  80 

Bailey,  John,  197 

Balboa,  6,  7,  89,  90,  333 

Barnacles,  40 

Beef,  Price  of,  166,  167 

Beauregard,  P.  T.  G.,  204 

Bitter,  Karl,  374 

Blackburn,  Joseph  C.  S.,   138,   142, 

250,  252,  258 

Board  of  consulting  engineers,  32 
Boswell,  Helen  Varick,  180 
Bridles,  77 

British  bondholders,  365 
Brooke,  Mark,  133 
Bryce,  James,  20,  23 
Buccaneers,  English,  334 
Bull-fighting,  328 
Bunau -Varilla,    Philippe,    2.2,2.,    230, 

237,  238,  246,  327 
Burke,  John,  143 
"Bush  dwellers,"  155 


Cables,  78 

Caisson  gates,  62,  63 

Caledonia,  159 

Camp  Fire  Girls,  183 

Cantilever  pivot  bridges,  57 

Canada,  Western,  20 

Canal  not  constructed  to  make  money, 
10 

Canal  Zone,  6,  7,  247,  326 

Canal  Zone  government,  256-267, 
271,  312 

Canals,  335-346 

Canals,  Isthmian,  194-205 

Cargo  ship,  319 

Central  and  South  American  Tele- 
graph Company,  253 

Chagres  River,  2,  5,  27,  32,  33,  36, 
37,  40,  82,  110,  214,  280,  330 

Chagres  Valley,  33,  36 

Chain  for  stopping  vessels,  58,  59,  60 

Channel,  Sea-level,  46 

Charles  V,  194 

Chauncey,  Henry,  103 

Cheops,  Pyramid  of,  24 

Chicago  Drainage  Canal,  345 

Childs,  Orville,  199 

Choice  of  route,  221-232 

Chucunoques,  332 

Civil  administration,  138 

Civil-service  requirements,  136 

Claims,  Adjustment  of,  323 

Claims  for  lands,  260 

Clay,  Henry,  197 

Clayton-Bulwer  treaty.  15.  17,  198, 
302,  303 

Cleveland  (Ship),  297 

Clutches,  Friction,  57 

Clubhouses,  186 

Coaling,  320 

Coaling  plants,  91,  92 

Cock-fighting,  328 

Cole,  H.  O..  143 

Collisions,  60 


,  381 


382 


INDEX 


Colombia,  227,  228,  231,  233-245 
Colon  Beach,  101 

Columbus,  Christopher,  3,  194,  347 
Comber,  W.  G,,  143 
Commercial  map,  347-357 
Commissary,  164-175 
Commissary  department,  30 
Compagnie     Universelle     du     Canal 

Interoceanique,  213,  214 
Concession,  Extension  of,  104 
Concession  to  the  French,  196 
Concrete  mixers,  54 
Congress  and  the  canal,  268-276 
Conquerers,  Spanish,  334 
Constantinople,  Capture  of,  347,  348 
Constantinople,   Convention  of,   292 
Contra  Costa  Water       Company,  43 
Contract  system,  13 
Contractor's  Hill,  79 
Controversy  with  Colombia,  233-245 
Cook,  Thomas  F.,  144 
Corozal  (Dredge),  84 
Corruption,  14 
Corruption  in  building  French  canal, 

9,  207 

Cortez,  Hernando,  195 
Cost  of  canal,  5 
Cost  of  French  canal,  208 
Cotton  production,  Center  of,  355 
Coupon  books,  169 
Court  system,  261 
Courtesy  of  West  Indian  Negro,  157 
Courtesy  of  workmen,  147 
Cranes,  Floating,  322 
Cristobal,  6,  7 
Cromwell,  William  Nelson,  230,  237, 

327 
Cronstadt  and  St.  Petersburg  Canal, 

343 

Cruelty  of  natives,  329 
Cruelty  of  Spaniards,  333 
Culebra  Cut,  5,  13,  21,  26,  34,  35,  40, 

70-81,  214,  216,  277,  278 
Culebra  Mountain,  4,  20,  79,  80,  196, 

277 

Cullom,  Shelby  M.,  232 
Culverts,  50 

Dams,  Emergency,  60,  61 
Davis,  Charles  H.,  196 
Davis,  George  W.,  134,  256 


Death  rate,  103 

Debts  of  American  Republics,  365 

Department  store,  166 

Deportation  of  laborers,  152 

Devol,  C.  A.,  143 

Dikes,  126 

Dikes  of  Holland,  44 

"Dingler's  folly,"  208 

Diplomatic  entanglements,  17 

Dredges,  Ladder,  84 

Dredges,  Suction,  83 

Duty  on  imports,  323 

Dynamite,  28,  74 

Eads,  James  B.,  202,  203 
Eastern  Roman  Empire,  3 
Eating  places,  170 
Economy  in  handling  material,  55 
Efficiency  records,  72,  73 
Eight-hour  working  day,  137,  271 
Elections  in  Panama,  251,  327 
Electric  current,  67 
Electrical  department,  315 
Endicott,  Mordecai  T.,  135 
•"Energy;  the  lord  of  the  Isthmian 

way,"  394 

Engineering  department,  314 
Engineering  difficulties,  29 
Engineering  project  of  all  history, 

23 

Englishman  defies  Tropics,  177 
Equipment  for  hauling  material,  53 
Erie  Canal,  346 

Expense  of  operating  canal,  313 
Extravagance    in    building    French 

canal,  207 
Ernst,  Oswald  H.,  135 

Filibusters,  French,  334 
Finley,  Carlos,  11,  106 
Fire  department,  264 
Fishing,  192 
Flamenco  Island,  88 
Flowers,  330 

Foreign  trade  of  U.  S.,  353 
Fortifications,  18,  283-294 
Foundations,  90 
Fraser,  John  Foster,  355 
French  began  work  in  1880,  5 
French  canal,  53 
French  failure.  206-220 


INDEX 


383 


French    Panama    Canal    Company, 

200 

French  spent  $300,000,000,  8 
French  Canal  Company,  9,  93,  252 
Fruits,  330 

Gaillard,  D.  D.,  138,  139 

Gamboa,  40 

Gatun  Dam,  13,  21,  23,  25,  26,  32-34, 

36,  41-43,  56,  279 
Gatun  Lake,  36,  37,  38,  45,  47,  50,  56, 

60,  62,  82,  95,  315,  330 
Goethal,  George  Washington,  13,  18, 

33,  43,  119-132,  273 
Gold  Hill,  79 
Golf  links,  315 
Good  Hope,  Cape  of,  19 
Gorgas,  William  C.,   105,   108,   134, 

138,  142 

Government  ownership  of  railways,  99 
Graft,  14 

"Great  undertaker,"  218 
Guayaquil,  19 
Gudger,  H.  A.,  263 
Guerin,  Jules,  374 
Gulf  States,  20 

Hains,  Peter  C.,  135 

Handling  the  traffic,  317-325 

Hanna,  Marcus  A.,  227,  230 

Harding,  Chester,  143 

Harrod,  Benjamin  A.,  135 

Hay,  John,  246 

Hay-Herran  treaty,    16,    231,    232, 

233,  235 
Hay  -  Pauncefote  treaty,    17,    225, 

300,  301,  303,  304 
Health  of  canal  workers,  210 
Heat  of  the  Tropics,  179 
Hepburn,  William  P.,  223 
High  cost  of  living,  175 
Hise,  Elijah  198 
Hodges,  Harry  F.,  139,  141 
Honolulu,  19 
Hoosac  Tunnel,  71 
Hospitals,  112,  208,  209 
Hotels,  100,  101,  171 
Hunter,  Henry,  278 
Hunting,  191,  192 
Hydraulic  excavation,  79 
Hydraulic  Fill.  35 


Ice  plant,  92 
Ice,  Price  of,  168 
Iguana,  329 
Immigration,  157 
Incas  Society,  152 
Injury  to  the  canal,  324 
International  commerce,  3 
Isthmian  Canal  Commission,  12,  88. 

96,  97,  109,  119,  201,  224,  225,  229. 

268,  269,  311 

Johnson,  Emory  R.,  18,  299,  306 

Kahn,  Julius,  370 

Kaiser  -  Wilhelm  Canal,  340-341 

Kiel  Canal,  340-341 

Knox,  Philander  C.,    43,  243 

Labor  in  passing  ships  through,  68,  69 

Laborers,  367 

Land,  Prices  of,  333 

Laws  of  Canal  Zone,  266,  267 

Lesseps,  Ferdinand  de,  8,  132,  211- 

219 

Lidgerwood  cableways,  53 
Lidgerwood  dirt  car,  25 
Lidgerwood  dirt  trams,  76 
Lidgerwood  flat  cars,  74,  77 
Life  on  the  zone,  176-193 
Lighting  of  locks,  325 
Liquor  question,  186 
Lloyd,  J.  A.,  196 
Lloyds,  324 

Lock  canal,  13,  18,  137,  216,  217,  281 
Lock  machinery,  57-67 
Locks,    19,   26,  46,   48-55,    58,   62. 

318 

Locomotives,  Electric,  65-67 
Lottery,  217,  254 
Loulan,  J.  A.,  148 
Lusitania,  297 

Machinery,  Dependable,  57 

Machinery,  Abandoned,  207 

Machinery,  Value  of,  219 

MacKenzie,  Alexander,  119 

Magellan,  4 

Magellan,  Straits  of,  19 

Magoon,  Charles  E.,  109,  135,    136. 

264 
"Making  the  dirt  fly,"  27 


384 


INDEX 


Malaria,  9,  11,  105,  207,  211 

Man-made  peninsula,  45 

Manchester  ship  canal,  29,  30,  339 

Manila,  19 

Manson,  Sir  Patrick.  11,  106 

Manufacturers  of  U.  S.,  363 

Margarita  Island,  284 

Maritime  Canal  Company,  200,  223 

Markets,  329 

Marriage,  155 

Married  men  more  content,  179 

Materia  medica  of  Panamans,  331 

Matrimony,  Premium  on,  179 

Mears,  Frederick,  143 

Melbourne,  19 

Menocal,  A.  G.,  200 

Metcalf,  Richard  L.,  139 

Miraflores,  26,  27,  40,  47,  55.  61.  67, 

82,  89,  126 
Mississippi  Valley,  20 
Mistakes  in  building,  12 
Mahogany,  330 

Money  for  building  always  ready,  11 
Monroe  doctrine,  7,  15,  360,  361, 
Morgan,  Henry,  334 
Morgan,  John  T.,  221 
Mosquito  Coast,  198 
Mosquitoes,  9,  11,  12,  105-107,  114, 

T15 

Naos  Island,  87,  .284 

National  geographic  society,  23 

National  Institute,  327 

Naval  display,  375 

Navy,  Efficiency  of,  348 

Negroes,  154-163 

Nelson,  Horatio,  197 

New  Caledonia,  7 

New  Granada,  237 

New  Panama  Canal  Company,  133, 

219,   221,   224-228,   233,   235-237, 

242,  270 
Nicaraguan  Canal,  15,  16,  198,  199, 

201,  222,  230,  231 
Nicaraguan  Canal  Commission,  199 
Nombre  de  Dios,  7,  53 
North  Sea  Canal,  342-343 

Olympic,  59 

Operating  force,  309-312 

Orchids,  330 


Oregon  (U.  S.  Ship),  10 
Organization,  133-144 
Organization  of  government  on  Canal 
Zone,  313 

Pacific  Ocean  Exposition  Company, 

370 
Pacific  Steamer  Navigation  Company, 

321 

Palmer,  Aaron  H.,  197 
Pan  American  Conference,  7 
Panama,    236,    237,    239.    240,    241, 

243,  246-255 
Panama,  Bay  of,  280 
Panama-California  Exposition,  376 
Panama  Canal  Company,  133,  218 
Panama  City,  12,  43 
Panama  -  Pacific     Exposition,     368- 

378 

Panama  (Republic),  6,  15,  326-334 
Panama  Railroad,  7,  34,  68,  88,  93, 

104,  136,  214,  228,  245 
Panama  Railroad  Steamship  Line,  IOC 
Pay-day,  160,  161 
Pay  of  Americans,  173 
Paying  off  canal  army,  30 
Pedro  Miguel,  25,  27,  47,  48.  55.  61, 

89 

Pennsylvania  tubes,  50 
Perico  Island,  88,  285 
Pilots,  Canal,  60 
Police  force,  262,  263 
Population  of  the  zone,  315 
Porto  Rico,  358-360 
Position  of  canal,  5 
Postal  service,  261 
Prize  fighting,  328 
Purchase  of  material,  272 

Quartermaster's  department,  174, 314 
Quellenec,  F.,  278 

Railroads  opposed  to  canal,  222 

Rates,  Passenger,  103 

Rates,  Railroad,  99 

Rating  of  employees,  151 

Reed,  Walter,  106 

Reimbursement  to  owners  of  vessels 

for  accidents,  323 
Rental  for  Canal  Zone,  826 
Religious  activities,  183 


INDEX 


385 


Roads,  191,  264,  265 
Robinson,  Tracy,  215,  216 
Root,  Elihu,  242 
Ross,  Roland,  11,  106 
Rosseau,  Armand,  217 
Rourke,  W.  G.,  143 
Rousseau,  Harry  H.,  138,  139,  148 
Royal  Mail  Steam  Packet  Company, 
321 

Safety  appliances,  57 

Safety  for  ships,  281 

Sailing  ships,  Death  blow  to,  322 

Salaries,  310 

San  Bias  Indians,  332 

San  Diego  and  Arizona  Railway,  376 

San  Francisco  earthquake,  368-369 

Sanitary  department,  30 

Sanitation,  105-117,  328,  332,  352 

Sault    Ste.    Marie  canal,  314,     335, 

343-344 

Saville,  Caleb  M.,  41,  143 
School  system,  264 
Schools,  Night,  187 
Sea-level  canal,  13,  18,  137,  272,  279- 

282 

Secret  societies,  184 
Servants,  181,  182 
Shanton,  George  R.,  262 
Shaw,  Albert  D.,  232 
Ship  railway,  202,  203,  204 
Shipping  routes,  International,  351 
Shonts,  Theodore  P.,  135,  137 
Shovels,  Steam,  83,  150 
Sibert,  William  L.,  138,  139 
Simplon  Tunnel,  71 
Site  of  exposition,  371 
Slides,  77,  78 
Smith,  Jackson,  138,  139 
Social  diversion,  182 
Society  of  the  Chagres,  152,  153 
Soda  fountain,  178 
"Soo"  locks,  62 

Spanish  American  war  veterans,  128 
Spanish    language,    Study   of,    181, 

188 

Spanish  Main,  356 
Spillway,  26,  37,  38,  39 
Spooner,  John  C.,  229 
Steamship  lines,  98 
Stegomyia,  11,  107,  115,  211 


Stevens,  John  R,  27,  102,  119.  129, 

130,  136,  138 
Stoney  Gate  valves,  50 
Strangers'  Club,  182 
Street-car  system,  191 
Strikes,  129 

Suez  Canal,  21,  29,  335-339,  376,  377 
Suez  Canal  rules,  292 
Supplies  for  building  canal  free  of 

duty,  323 
Switches,  Limit,  57 

Taberailla,  78 

Taboga  Island,  285 

Taboga  Sanitarium,  113 

Taft,  Wm.  Howard,  33,  118 

Tehuantepec,  Isthmus  of,  202,  204 

Tehuantepec  railroad,  203 

Tierra  del  Fuego,  4 

Thatcher.  Maurice  H..  139 

Tivoli  Hotel,  100,  170 

Titanic  marine  stairway,  45 

Tolls,  18,  295-308,  319 

Toro  Point,  46,  87,  284' 

Towing,  322 

Track  shifter,  76 

Trade  opportunities,  358-367 

Traffic,  18,  19 

Tramp  steamer,  320 

Transcontinental  tonnage,  350' 

Transportation  of  material  excavated, 

75 

Traveling  salesmen,  363-364 
Treaties  with  Colombia  and  Panama. 

244 

Tropics,  Diseases  of,  9 
Type  of  canal,  275 

University  Club,  182 

Vaccination  of  negroes,  162 
Vanderbilt,  Cornelius,  199 
Voting,  184,  185 

Wages,  146,  165 

Wallace,  John  Findley,  130,  133, 

loo 

Washington  Hotel,  101 
Washington  monument,  23,  25.  26 
Water,  Control  of,  65 
Water  supply,  265,  266 


INDEX 


Watertight  material,  41 
Wickedness  of  the  City  of  Panama, 

328 

Williams,  E.  J.,  143,  160 
Williamson,  S.  B.,  143 
Wilson,  Eugene  T.,  143 
Wilson,  T.  D.,  204 
Wire  screens,  12 
Women's  clubs,  180,  181 
Women's  Federation  of  Clubs,  183 


Wood,  Leonard,  108 
Workmen,  145-153 
Wyse,  Lucien  Napoleon  Bonaparte, 
212,  218 

Yellow  fever,   9,   11,   12.    105,   109. 

110,  112,  211 

Yellow  fever  commission,  106 
Young  Men's  Christian  Association, 

176,  180,  207 


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